M. mystax bloomed today :)

Very nice, Paul. It is great when these long spines appear. It doesn't always happen, some plants stay with short spines, and some become like birds nests with them. These are the ones that I really like to see, and yours looks like it wil become one of them!

Chris43 wrote:

It is great when these long spines appear. It doesn't always happen, some plants stay with short spines, and some become like birds nests with them. These are the ones that I really like to see, and yours looks like it wil become one of them!

Great! Me Too

I think I need to repot it. I used a commercial "Cactus Soil" mix with more perlite added along with gravel and coarse sand, but as you can see from the photo, all the "woodchips" that are mixed into the commercial mix, have floated to the top after waterings. It looks like it's planted in rich compost. But I suppose if it's doing good, maybe I should just leave it alone.

If I get a "birds nest" I'll let you know and take some pics

Just to show the variability - I photographed both of them on the Mesa de San Lorenzo near Tehuacan in 2005. They were no more than 800 metres apart.

Sweet! Are ther any inbetweens? Because if not, then since mine already has a few long curlys, it will probably continue with them... right?

If I polinate right... and I get seeds, Anyone want some?

Forgot to ask... Does the curly one have another name? Or still just M. mystax?

Yes there are in betweens, all sorts, and there are perhaps 10 or so names associated with mystax, but now just treated as one variable species.

A couple of names often seen associated with this species are casoi and multiseta.

It takes about 4 -5 years before seedlings start to produce the curly spines. I have a number of collections, but the two below are the best of the bunch at the moment.

Rog 340 ( casoi ) from Esperanza, Pue. Grown from seed from AfM 2007 seed list.



WTH 496, low vocanic hills on the road from Canada Morelos to Azumbilla, Pue.



If you see this wolter should you let us see the plant in habitat.

In the fall of 2004, a few km south of a napina - pectinifera location, I found several large mystax plants (field number WTH 496). What I remember is that the spination was quite variable, just like Chris said. I took a few slides, probably from the plants with the most impressive spination. See the attached photos (from scanned slides, so the quality is not super). Tam, your WTH 496 has a very impressive spination, better than the spination on my WTH 496 seedlings!

Very Nice guys But Tam, you seedlings are MUCH younger than mine and mine just started growing spines like that this year! When I purchased it a little over a year ago, it just looked like any short spined M. mystax. Woltertenhoeve, if there's that much variation in spination, I can't wait to see what some of the seedlings look like Fingers crossed I do a good job of pollinating!

To show the variability of M. mystax from different locations, I have added the following photos:
The first photo shows seedling plants of M. mystax FO-250 (MG 802; Steven Brack adds: Huajuapan, black twisted spines), the second photo shows seedling plants of M. mystax FO-024 (MG 802.34; SB adds: Sierra Mixteca, stout white spines, black tips) and the third photo shows seedling plants of M. mystax WTH 496.
Reppenhagen writes the following about M. mystax in his books (from a location SW of Tehuacán):
" It never forms offsets, but is extremely variable in its spination. On one side there are plants with very short, straight spines and on the other side there are plants with very long, twisted spines completely covering the plant body. Long- and short-spined plants sometimes grow right beside each other".

Wolter.