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At the moment, most of my collection by sheer numbers are young seedlings I've sown in the past 2 years, but I do have several flowering size plants that I didn't raise from seed myself. I decided to share here pics of these and their flowers. After all, not much is more beautiful than cactus flowers (totally unbiased opinion, I promise ).

First some winter bloomers, from this past season.

Mammillaria perezdelarosae


Mammillaria senilis


Mammillaria stella-de-tacubaya


Turbinicarpus pseudopectinatus


Turbinicarpus valdezianus


both plants bloomed! I wanted to pollinate but I didn't have a chance to separate these from the T. pseudopectinatus. Both species formed one fruit each, so I will have hybrids.


Rapicactus zaragosae. This bloomed late in the winter, going into spring.


Speaking of spring, here are plants that bloomed in the last month or so.

Echinocereus pulchellus


Mammillaria humboldtii


Mammillaria lenta


Mammillaria mystax


Parodia erubescens (schlosseri?)


Aylostera heliosa


Sulcorebutia rauschii 'aureispina'


Sulcorebutia rauschii


before anthesis


and at the end of a dry winter rest


Bulbine mesembryanthemoides, sowed these in the fall of 2020. I have yet to catch flowers of different plants blooming at the same time to pollinate.


The Astrophytum are starting to bloom, here's one, A. myriostigma

Off to a good start!

Hello, very nice beautiful plants and high quality pics, many thanks for sharing! Where do you hold you collection? Under the open sun?

Aeonium2003 wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 1:12 am Off to a good start!

Thanks Evan!

anttisepp wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 5:20 am Hello, very nice beautiful plants and high quality pics, many thanks for sharing! Where do you hold you collection? Under the open sun?

Thanks anttisepp! Yes, I keep most of the collection under direct sun most of the year. We have very hot summers here so on the hottest days when temperatures approach (and often exceed) 110F/43C, I will move the shelf (it's on casters) and other pots scattered about under a pergola with 80% shade cloth.

Beautiful pictures and cacti! and thank you very much for naming the cacti! For a beginner, thats really great, learning to recognize the different species. The more pics one sees ( for those of us who aren’t surrounded by cacti societies, expert growers and shows) the better.

Mrs.Green wrote: ↑Sun May 29, 2022 4:52 pm Beautiful pictures and cacti! and thank you very much for naming the cacti! For a beginner, thats really great, learning to recognize the different species. The more pics one sees ( for those of us who aren’t surrounded by cacti societies, expert growers and shows) the better.

Thanks Mrs.Green!

As for "Parodia erubescens (schlosseri?)" - no need for the question mark, schlosseri is a valid synonym. Named for Hugo Schlosser, who first collected it. I knew without asking that it was grown under full sun, they will tolerate light shade but don't get nearly that spiky. Some might find it prettier grown in light shade, but in my experience it blooms better given as much sun as it can take - like yours, which is making a fine display!

Mine did turn a bit yellow during last year's "heat dome" event, when it was over 100f for a few days - even though I moved them to a shadier spot, they were definitely stressed.

greenknight wrote: ↑Sun May 29, 2022 11:30 pm As for "Parodia erubescens (schlosseri?)" - no need for the question mark, schlosseri is a valid synonym. Named for Hugo Schlosser, who first collected it. I knew without asking that it was grown under full sun, they will tolerate light shade but don't get nearly that spiky. Some might find it prettier grown in light shade, but in my experience it blooms better given as much sun as it can take - like yours, which is making a fine display!

Mine did turn a bit yellow during last year's "heat dome" event, when it was over 100f for a few days - even though I moved them to a shadier spot, they were definitely stressed.

Thanks Spence!
My confusion comes from the variety of sources that list this taxon under different "accepted" names.

Putting aside the Notocactus or Parodia genus name:
Lodé and Mesa Garden list it as 'schlosseri'
Llifle and The Plant List have it as 'erubescens'

then it gets a bit strange:
ADBLPS has it as 'erubescens fa. schlosseri'
and Kew has it down as natural hybrid 'Parodia x erubescens'

to make matters worse, neither 'schlosseri' nor 'erubescens' are listed as synonyms for anything in this 2018 synopsis of the genus Parodia.

It is confusing. I bought my original one as an unlabeled 2.5" pot seedling. I recognized it as a common Notocactus (or Parodia?), not sure of the species - I just wanted it for the flowers, I wasn't too concerned about the exact species. The flowers didn't disappoint, but it took me a while to pin down the ID.

Fruits popped out of this Mammillaria stella-de-tacubaya today. Although I did manually cross-pollinate with flowers of my second plant, I didn't separate these from my other flowering Mamms at the time since the flowers were already opened for several hours before I noticed them on this plant. We'll see what pops up from the seeds!

That Mammillaria stella de tabucaya is definitely one I want to grow some day.

Awesome

I realized I didn't show the plant the Bulbine flower belonged to.

Here it is now, Bulbine mesembryanthemoides (subs. mesembryanthemoides?):

You can see at least two plants forming a second flowering peduncle.

I managed to cross-pollinate several flowers, but these don't fertilize easily? Less than 50% seem to form a fruit. Perhaps I am not doing it at the right time of day...Here's one unripe fruit.


and here's a ripe fruit ready for harvest


and the seeds.



Bonus: Epithelantha chihuahuensis


I bought a pair of these from miles2go and this is the second time this particular plant has flowered in my care. This is a rather obscure taxon, as I can't find much of info on it online. Unlike E. micromeris, this isn't self-fertile, so maybe this is related to E. bokei or maybe even E. ilariae? Could be a hybrid too I suppose. Here's the second plant, refusing to flower yet again and allowing me to borrow its flowers' pollen and ovaries...

Epithelantha chihuahuensis has the flower color like Epithelantha unguispina .

Bummer when two plants don't flower at the same time. V. pretty flowers