mammillaria affinis crucigera WM 4570

in flower today 25 feb 2010

mammillaria affinis crucigera WM4570
west of rio salado bridge - oaxaca - mexico

I have this to, from the same source I think, but have not noticed any flowers.
The qusetion is, is this a true crucigera or a possible hybrid with a form of albilanata ?
Lau also mentions a white spine form of huitzilopochlti which carries his field number L 1500. This is not L 1500, but Thomas Linzen has found huitzilopochtli at other locations not seen by Lau so I would rule out anything with this plant.

I also have this from a small seedling that I bought from Doug Sizmur in 1993 apparently, and it was named as supertexta then, I believe. I can't recall seeing any flowers though! and it hasn't offset, just grown a bit taller.

From your photo, it doesn't look like it has crucigera type flowers to me, neither in colour or shape. The other subspecies of crucigera - tlalocii and grandinosa all have definitel pink flowers. The flowers of this plant look more like some forms of dixanthocentron to me.

This is one of my Lau 1500 plants in flower:



And a couple of my dixanthocentron plants - not fully in flower, but you can see that they aren't pink! although they are from further north than WM4570.

FO-230, from the Barranca Calipan, Puebla


One of my ML plants, I think it is ML197, from El Campanario, nr Calipan, Puebla. Sorry I can't read the label on the photo., but I'll try to check it out in the morning.

My dixanthocentron FO230

Thanks Ento, that confirms the flower colour. The central spines on my plant seem to be a bit smaller than on yours, but we know that these are variable taxa!

today the plant is in flower another time 40 day after the first flowers in 2010 feb 25

Is there a suggestion that WM 4570 is dixanthocentron and not crucigera ?

Tam

I think that this is where I would put it. There have been a lot of highly variable forms of dixanthocentron found which change th eoriginal view of a plant with long curving yellow central spines - as celsiana! When WM4570 was first named, I think it was put under supertexta, which is quite possible looking at the plant without flowers, but then changed, and I don;t know whether that was by Woody Minnich or by others. My only source of hs field list is in Pilbeam.
The location of "south of the bridge over the Rio Salado" probably is the bridge where the railway and the river are crossed by the road, and if so then it is between Quiotepec and Tecomavaca. This does suggest to me that it may not be crucigera, as most of the discoveries of this species are a bit further north, closer to the Puebla - Oaxaca border, around Tilapa.
It is such an interesting area which has produced such a wide variation in many of the species found there that it is so difficult for amateurs like us to be sure about identification.

i want to show you two plants from carlo zanovello with fn WM 4570.
now i'll wait for the flowers that i'll post in the next years (sic!)