Escobaria vivipara in Alberta, Canada

I have posted photos several times of our local E. vivipara plants in other places but not in this forum as much as I remember about this. Being at their northern edge of population habitat plants here are active not more then 4 - 5 months of the year and to see them with flowers is even harder because being open just 2 days for each one. Blooming happens in late June at sunny and warm weather after 1 o'clock pm. Habitats are located in dry eroded prairies in SW Alberta and every season I try to visit some known or new perspective location mostly on weekends. Will show you some photos here from 2022 from a spot near Red Deer river I visited for a first time.










Plants are hard to spot if not in bloom.




Here we can see the size of the first-time bloomers: about 4 - 5 cm in diameter with a single or two flowers.



Some clumps already had green fruits formed.




At some spots so many plants were growing close so one have to be very careful not to step over them.


The other cactus also in bloom there was Opuntia polyacantha.

The whole set from two different seasons and localities can be seen here.

Fantastic habitat photos! Thanks for sharing.

Wolter.

Wow, what great phptos of lovely habitat plants. I sowed a couple of packets of E. vivipara seeds, which were stated to be Canadian, one from Dorothy and the other from Old Man River.They are too youg to see just how different they are from my Arizona seed grown plants, or indeed from each other. But apart, perhaps, from an Opuntia in Ontario, these must be the most northerly cactus plants.

Escobaria plants across Alberta look very alike: branched, low-growing and showing more green flesh than those in the South, like growing in Arizona which can be much more dense-spined, up to short cylindrical single plants.

Here are some in Lethbridge that is at Oldman river:




Also a clump from Milk river that is at the border with Montana:


A photo of some seedlings I did from habitat seeds taken ~ 10 years ago.