M.moelleriana Lau 694

In flower today. 6-4-09 M.moelleriana L694, Hornillos near Fresnillo, Zacatecas.

10-04-09: Completely different color; no field data

LAU 694

in the preparation of a study on m.moelleriana, i found it very useful to consult "the juornal of mammillaria society" riceived in pdf format, especially mr. Alasdair Glen notes on page 38, vol.42.
in vol.48, pag.15 there is a note in which mr. Mark Masterson describes LAU 694 with red spines and pink flowers.
in this forum i found this post and on another occasion a photo of mr. Chris Davies about LAU 694 with red spines and pink flowers.
in dr. Carlo Zanovello collection i found LAU 694 with yellow spines and pink flowers.



in my collection i have a LAU 694 with yellow spines.











in "notes on the 2010 seed distribution" by Bill Maddams at pag.91 vol.49:
"m.moelleriana is quite variable, both in the colour of its central spines and flowers, althought there is a strong tendency for the pink/carmine flowers to go with dark spines and cream flowers with yellow spines.
lau 694, from Hornillos, Fresnillo, Zacatecas at an altitude of 2300m comes from a population with beautiful yellow spines, to quote Alfred Lau, and is thus the form commonly known as m.cowperae, which i prefer to the forms with darker spines."

i leave to the experiences of other members of this forum open this discussion...

maurizio

I have checked my plants and have 4 different collection numbers, and two plants of some.

My WK138 is yellow spined.
Both my ROG077 are yellow spined.
One of my Lau 694 has dark centrals, but pale radials; the smaller Lau 694 has centrals that are yellow for 1/2 their length, and then shade into chestnut brown.
My Lau 1334 plants are dark spined, making the plant look very much darker overall.

Variability of spine colours between different populations of many Mammillarias is a well known fact. Some specific populations of some species can show quite wide variability. This seems to be the case for Mammillaria moelleriana.

It is also true of Mammillaria bombycina, with plants with brown centrals, plants with almost red centrals, and plants with yellow centrals, all being in circulation.

I have seen plants of Mammillaria sinistrohamata with brown spines and plants with yellow spines growing literally next to one another.

I don't really think that spine colour, or even number of them, is an absolute determinant of what we call species.

An additional thing to consider is that many of the plants we have in our collections are 2nd or 3rd or even greater generations, which might further increase the variability of plants that are bred, through selection of the "nicest"; or indeed their "purity" might be compromised, despite best efforts.

so that you think that is possible for LAU 694 plants with red spines and palnts with yellow spines?

this from mesa garden seed list 2011 .....

789-moelleriana 'cowperi' yellow spined dazzler
792-moelleriana L694 Hornillos, red centrals
792.2-moelleriana L1334 /15/ San Francisco de Organos, pink sp
793-moelleriana SB498 Sombrerete, Zac., yellow flower

To be very precise:

I believe that Lau 694 was collected from a population of yellow spined plants - very beautiful according to Dr. Lau.

I'm no DNA expert but ......

I think that it is possible for plants from this population to produce seed which produces plants which can have brown/red spines. The genes (or whatever it is) are probably within the plant's DNA, and while some populations have a prediliction for producing yellow spined plants only - maybe because of soil ,or altitude, or sun/shade or .... - it could well be possible for other spine colours to be produced, especially in a different continent in different cultivation conditions.

If these plants don't posess the genes which enable the plant to do this, then I believe that they should be defined as a genuinely different species, or at the least, a subspecies.

In 2003 I visited the location at Hornillos. There I found only yellow-spined plants. However, Thomas Linzen, in the AfM loose-leaf collection, states that there are also brownish-red spined plants, although they are a small minority. Reppenhagen writes that at Hornesillo there are yellow-spined plants, but also darker-spined plants with red flowers. Thomas Linzen writes in the loose-leaf collection that he doubts that there are red-flowered plants at Los Hornillos. The Reppenhagen location of Hornesillo is probably a misspelling of Hornillos, the actual name of the village is San Juan de los Hornillos.
About 20 km from this location, at Presa de Linares, I found plants which are yellowish, as well as reddish spined. The flower colour varies from pinkish to yellow. See the attached photos.
Because this location is not far from Hornillos, I would not consider it unlikely that there exist also pinkish flowered plants of Lau 694.
About 100 km to the northwest, in the Sierra Organos, I found only reddish-spined M. moelleriana, with pink flowers.
And about 300 km north of Sierra Organos grows Lau 698 (near Nieves), stated by Lau to be a form of M. barbata, but considered to be M. moelleriana by Hunt! I have one plant of Lau 698, grown from seed from the DeHerdt brothers in 1995. It looks a lot like M. moelleriana, is somewhat reddish-spined, but has somewhat thinner and longer central spines (and has pinkish flowers, if remember well). Does anybody else have this Lau 698?

Wolter ten Hoeve, The Netherlands.