ID required - maybe lloydii but...

This is a plant that I was given a year or so ago, and has lived under the staging ever since, hence the spiers web, and it only had one label - Mamm!



I'm trying to identify it, as I can no longer ask the chap who gave it me - as he sadly passed away earlier this year. If I had to write a description I'd say that it had 4 sided tubercles, little axillary wool, perhaps an occasional bristle, and from 3 to 6 radial spines, uppermost very short and soon vanishing, leaving about 3 or 4 stout white spines tipped black or dark brown. In addition there appears to be one other spine, not really a central more of a slightly misplaced radial spine, towards the top of the areole, again short and if anything thinner than the three white radials, and of a red brown to brown colour.

The closest I can get is M. lloydii, but there is no mention in my books of radial spines more than 4. It is interesting that the species illustrated in Pilbeam isn't the true lloydii according to Hunt in the New Cactus Lexicon. The true description of the species apparently was in Britton and Rose and the axils were described as "only slightly woolly", the plants shown in Pilbeam have lots of axillary wool.

Here a blow-up to see the spines better:



Your help in identifying this plant, fellow Mammillaria enthusiasts, would be very welcome.

I see that no-one has been brave enough to try an identification!

I think I have solved it, as now the plant is out in the light, there are some hairs/bristles in teh axils, which points almost certainly to karwinskiana. My previous thought about lloydii is probably not right, as this species may have wool, but not hairs or bristles in teh axils, and no central spine.

Do our members agree with me?

These photos may help, perhaps a bit better than the previous ones, as they show the darker single central (or sub-central) and the bristles in the axils:



and a blow-up:

Agree with karwinskiana, Chris. Certainly not a lloydii. I had not seen this topic before, that's why my late reaction.

Thanks Hugo,
I think I posted this when you were starting to have your PC problems. I have 4 of these, and it is only the larger 2 that have developed the bristles so far, and much more obvious central. It is interesting how these plants develop, and it shows the danger of jumping to conclusions on rather young plants.

hello,
maybe I lie completely incorrectly, but this plant is M. priessnitzii for me momentarily.
The flowers will possibly give us the solution of the puzzle then.
Greeting
Holger

Thanks Holger,
I will check on preissnitzii, as I have two properly named ones in my collection. I'm not sure that it is, and hope I don't have to wait for flowering which could be a year or two yet.