Help with a Mammillaria elongata

[cactophonic]

Hi everybody, can you help identifying this cactus? I'm assuming it's a Mammillaria elongata, but I don't know what kind. The tallest "finger" is about 4 inches.
Thanks!

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[Lucy_V]

It is Mammillaria elongata. what do you mean by "what kind"?

[DaveW]

As Lucy says it is Mammillaria elongata. I presume you mean does it have a varietal or subspecific name? Mammillaria elongata is very variable over its range as to spine colour, with spination from white through yellow to dark red, therefore most forms don't usually get given varietal names. Looks as if it has a prominent central spine and that form used to be called Mammillaria echinaria, but as the plant is so variable it is usually just lumped under the oldest name Mammillaria elongata.

If you Google under both names you will get the form without a prominent central and the one with it mixed up. However the presence of a more prominent central spine, due to the plants variability not a good criteria for separate speciation.

See:-

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ma ... BasicHover

https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ma ... BasicHover

There is a very dark red spined cultivar called 'Copper King', but I have also seen that name mistakenly applied to any red spined M. elongata.

http://www.cactus-art.biz/schede/MAMMIL ... r_king.htm

[7george]

Mammillaria elongata ssp. elongata.
This is more specific, right?

[DaveW]

Or Mammillaria elongata ssp. elongata var. elongata forma elongata! Only joking, though not really since the "Rules" say the specific name of the type form is continued through all the lower ranks.

However this is not usually done or necessary, except in probably a botanical key to species and forms, since normally only using the lower ranks needed is all that is required for identification. However in a botanical key to species and forms you might see it written this way as:-

Mammillaria elongata ssp. elongata (this just indicates its the typical form, or normal elongata)
Mammillaria elongata ssp. echinaria (this just indicates echinaria as a differing subspecies)

In normal usage it would just be written as Mammillaria elongata and as Mammillaria elongata ssp echinaria if you considered echinaria was worthy of recognising as a distinct form and not just normal variation within the species. Continuing the specific name ad infinitum through all infrageneric ranks is usually only done in very technical botanical books, certainly not on forums.

[cactophonic]

There is a very dark red spined cultivar called 'Copper King', but I have also seen that name mistakenly applied to any red spined M. elongata.

http://www.cactus-art.biz/schede/MAMMIL ... r_king.htm

Thank you DaveW for the detailed and helpful informations!
I looked at some pictures of the copper king cultivar and in most of the cases the color of the spines looks like the one I have.