am I a Melo?

[mikethecactusguy]

Am I a Melo? Yes I'm badly sunburned. It happened a year ago due to a bit of carelessness.
Thanks
Mike M

[Download]

It looks quite similar to my unidentified melocactus:

viewtopic.php?p=386195

[mikethecactusguy]

It amazes me how so many people can pass out so much bad advice . On the Melocactus facebook page 3 people told me that I was wrong about the sunburn and that the plant was sick and dying. No one reads anything anymore and I stated the damage occured 1 year ago, The 4th person at least answered the question M. conoideus is the plant. It matchs what is on Llifle . Attisept was right in 2021 with his suggestion on yours.

[greenknight]

M. conoideus looks likely, not that I'm much good at IDing these - my reaction was "looks like a Melo all right". It's outgrown the sunburn damage wonderfully.

[mikethecactusguy]

Thanks Spence.
It was probably 110°f and 3pm when I noticed the burn last year. I thought the plant was a goner. I put it on lower shaded shelf of the greenhouse and ignored it. But it survived and now I'm letting sit out in the sun and bright light. It's rewarded me with the new spine growth.

[greenknight]

Cacti can survive a lot of sunburn as long as the growing tip isn't killed - the damage is rather superficial, the vascular bundles in the interior of the stem are unaffected. I fried my Echinocereus pentalophus badly and was sure a couple of the offsets were going to die back - but the tips were still alive, take a look:

[mikethecactusguy]

there's a new stem growing. Nice and green.

[greenknight]

This photo is from July 2020, it's grown quite a bit since then and made another offset. I've been trying to encourage the sunburned stems to root down beyond the damage, the smaller one has grown a root. No flowers yet, but I'm pleased with the spine development.

[Download]

It amazes me how so many people can pass out so much bad advice . On the Melocactus facebook page 3 people told me that I was wrong about the sunburn and that the plant was sick and dying. No one reads anything anymore and I stated the damage occured 1 year ago, The 4th person at least answered the question M. conoideus is the plant. It matchs what is on Llifle . Attisept was right in 2021 with his suggestion on yours.

Over on Reddit I had someone identify something as a Mammillaria when it very clearly was not, and their response to my (polite) correction was something to the effect of "Well I'm new here, I didn't know!"

So why were they offering an ID then if they are new, know they are new, and didn't know?