Possible Mammillaria sphaerica

Hi. A lot of time since last time I passed by.
I'd like someone confirms that this is really what it's supposed to be, that is Mammillaria sphaerica. I have pictures of another plant identified that way, but it's different, with the spines thicker forming like a kind of sphere (like the specific name suggests).





and this is the other supposed Mammillaria sphaerica.



Regards,

Hi,
The top photos are as stated on the label correctly as m.sphaerica. Your other plant is most likely m.baumii. Both are from the subgenus Dolichothele, both have yellow flowers that are sweet smelling. Hope this helps.

I think that they could both be M. sphaerica, and in my opinion they show the variability between plants from one location or the other. M. baumii should have more spines than your second plant.
If you search for sphaerica and baumii on the forum, you will find them on Maurillo's pages and there you can also see the variability in M. sphaerica. Several of the photos are mine, taken from plants in nature (so, I could be a bit biased...).
M. baumii and M. sphaerica grow in the same general region, and therefore it would not be surprising that at certain locations you will find plants which are somewhat intermediate between baumii and sphaerica (i.e. shorter tubercles and more spines than true sphaerica, but longer tubercles and less spines than true baumii). Your second plant might fall in that intermediate category.

Wolter ten Hoeve.

Thank you very much to both of you for your clear explanations. Very instructive indeed.

Hi all, just got back to the forum, and my first reaction to the photos was that the top ones looked very much like M. longimamma, and the second M. spaerica. Not sure why baumii came into the discussion. Unless the plants have valid location data, I'd ask someone to explain why the first isn't longimamma.

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Hi Chris,

I must admit that my first thought was also M. longimamma. But then I looked at my own photos (see M. sphaerica on the Maurillo pages), and there is a M. sphaerica with the long tubercles. I found this sphaerica, with many other similar ones, along the old road from Ciudad Victoria to Jaumave, close to the entrance of the Novillo canyon, so in 100% sphaerica territory.
In my opinion, the flowers of sphaerica are smaller than those of longimamma (and baumii-flowers smaller than sphaerica).

Wolter.

Hi Wolter,
I agree with the similarity, and it would have been much easier if the plants in question had some kind of attribution. I have seen many plants like the top photos in public collections which are wrongly named. I guess that without such attribution, I would wait until the plants are in flower, and compare flower sizes and structure. Then we may know with a greater degree of certainty.

Thanks again. I'll try then not to miss the next flowering and I'll come back .