Hoping to Harvest Seed

[ricelg]

Hello all

I got these 4 cacti today and all have seed pods. I hope to harvest the seed but would like to be able to ID them first. Can anyone help? Thanks

[Robb]

1 is probably Mammillaria prolifera and number 4 looks a lot like Mammillaria camptotricha.

[ricelg]

Thanks, Robb

[DaveW]

If the plants are self fertile the seed will probably be pure and same as the parent, but if not they may have been cross pollinated in a mixed collection and be hybrids. You can only be sure of pure seed if you isolate the plant at flowering time, or if it is only growing with plants of the same species. Even with self fertile plants in a mixed collection they are always liable to outcross with other compatible species rather than self pollinate.

[ricelg]

True. I figured if I had a better idea of what the plants were I can use the taxonomy list to see if they are more likely to be self fertile or not. #1,2 and 4 all appear to be Mammilarias but I'm not familiar with #3.