CactiGuide.com

Someone posted this on a local gardening group. She says the best answer she's gotten so far is some kind of throw back mutation.

How is that possible? She had her husband feel, and there are poky spines on the mutation growth whatever it is. Can't find anything on Google.
First pic showing mutation? Growing from main stem, then a regular Easter cactus leaf growth from it? Hard poky Spines on the mutation.
Main stem with another little mutation?

Man this picture system is frustrating. Second time it keeps uploading duplicates even though I checked file names before uploading, and it still does that.

Even if I go to edit, the file names are different, yet it loads the same file 3 times and ignores the other 2?

Here's one of the photos being run over, showing normal leaf growth on a separate tip.
And here's the other, another view of more possible bud sites for the mutation?

Regular leaf growth

Convinced her to trade cuttings for my Thanksgiving cactus. Told her I'd take a regular cutting, assuming it should have the same mutation capable genetics?

It'd be cool to have a different species anyway though.

A related species, Rhipsalidopsis (Hatiora) rosea has enormous variability in its stem shapes - flat is normal, but 3 or 4 sided (and possibly more) are pretty common too. I get the impression the more cylindrical shoots tend to be those growing up and out from the centre of the plants, whereas those further out from the centre and especially those hanging down are flat. Your odd shaped shoot seems to be following this pattern.

It would be interesting to see seedlings of these plants - I suspect that the inital growth is multi-sided to grow upwards, and the flat segments take longer to develop. Since most plants are grown from cuttings of flat segmetns, it's easy to think of these as the only normal shape.

From the pink rotate flower that is probably the hybrid Rhipsalidopsis X 'Graeseri' or possibly a similar hybrid between Schlumbergera gaertneri and Hatiora (Rhipsalodopsis) rosea. (Re. nomenclature these plants keep being moved around into different genera, so you will find them under Rhipsalidopsis, Hatiora and Schlumbergera)

http://www.flickriver.com/photos/ecosde ... 524487814/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatiora_gaertneri

http://panoss.fotki.com/hatiora-pages/r ... ea-15.html

There is a lithophytic form of Rhipsalidopsis rosea (lithophytic = usually grows on rocks, rather than epiphytic on trees in habitat) with similar stems. I believe it is illustrated in Die Cactaceae where Curt Backeberg gave it an invalid varietal name. Therefore those angled stems on that plant could just be a temporary reversion to one of the forms of it's parents.

Presumably there are R. rosea plants which show all degrees of variation between the flat and angles stems in habitat.

Planta Gusto, Seedlings & Cuttings.eu sells them. Can't get the image to open on the first link so linked to the image itself below.

http://www.seedlingsandcuttings.eu/inde ... salidopsis

http://www.seedlingsandcuttings.eu/medi ... wering.jpg

Thanks for putting that in perspective, I can handle that.