Visual guide to Mammilarias?

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Mrs.Green
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Visual guide to Mammilarias?

Post by Mrs.Green »

Finding Mammilarias a bit hard to ID a lot of times, it would be great to have a visual ‘guide’ to go trough. Mammilarianet is a great site but you have to first open it letter by letter and then open all species listed under the letter. Which is pretty time consuming if you don’t have a clue to wich letter your plant may ‘belong’ to. If there was a visual guide you just could scroll trough, excluding all plants tht don’t fit at all, it would have been a lot easier.

Does a guide/site like this exist? :D
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Tom in Tucson
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Re: Visual guide to Mammilarias?

Post by Tom in Tucson »

If you can find a used copy of the long out of print 'CACTI, THE ILLUSTRATED DICTIONARY' by Rod & Ken Pteston-Mafham, it's a fast way to narrow down an unknown species. . Many other genera are in this classic picture book. Before the internet, it was my 'bible' for IDs.
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Steve Johnson
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Re: Visual guide to Mammilarias?

Post by Steve Johnson »

Mrs.Green wrote: Mon Aug 29, 2022 7:40 pm Finding Mammilarias a bit hard to ID a lot of times, it would be great to have a visual ‘guide’ to go trough. Mammilarianet is a great site but you have to first open it letter by letter and then open all species listed under the letter. Which is pretty time consuming if you don’t have a clue to wich letter your plant may ‘belong’ to. If there was a visual guide you just could scroll trough, excluding all plants tht don’t fit at all, it would have been a lot easier.

Does a guide/site like this exist? :D
Try this:

http://www.llifle.com/Encyclopedia/CACT ... mmillaria/

Maybe not the most comprehensive, but IMO it's close enough.
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DaveW
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Re: Visual guide to Mammilarias?

Post by DaveW »

One of the best I find is John Pilbeam's "Mammillaria" Cactus File Handbooks published in 1999. It contains most but not the very latest discoveries. He did produce another more recent supplement containing these, but not as good as the original many think. You nay find it second-hand on EBAY or Googling for it. However Internet prices often bear no comparison to reality and the original published prices for second-hand books.

https://www.cactus-mall.com/bookshop/mammillaria.html

For those in the UK and Europe Keith's Cactus books has new and second-hand books and will keep an eye out for you should he get a second-hand copy. He does list Pilbeam's follow up work with the newer species @ £37, but still think the original is best.

http://www.keithscactusbooks.co.uk/

For those in the USA or surrounding countries Daiv, our Administrator, runs Exotic Plant Books and if asked may keep an eye out for a copy for you.

https://exoticplantbooks.com/cactus_search/

With both you will get more sensible down to earth prices for books than some you Google on the Internet.

Of course a classification of the genus helps you search if you know what your mystery plant is similar too. Then you can look up all the others the classification places in that section without having to search the whole genus.

https://www.cactus-art.biz/note-book/Ge ... llaria.htm
Mrs.Green
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Re: Visual guide to Mammilarias?

Post by Mrs.Green »

Thanks a lot Tom in Tucson, Steve Johnson and DaveW 🙂 Books are great ( unfortunately quite pricey though, especially with p&p from abroad) and nothing can beat the feeling of reading a book..but for this purpose a ‘scroll trough guide’ like the llifle link Steve provided is very helpful . You can quickly rule out a bunch of species and consentrate on others. I really liked the synonym guide below the guide too.
DaveW
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Re: Visual guide to Mammilarias?

Post by DaveW »

Mrs Green, you may prefer the German Mammillaria Society alphabetic listing then. Just click on the species first letter to bring up pictures.

https://mammillaria.forumotion.net/f21- ... ias-a-to-z
Mrs.Green
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Re: Visual guide to Mammilarias?

Post by Mrs.Green »

DaveW wrote: Wed Aug 31, 2022 8:26 am Mrs Green, you may prefer the German Mammillaria Society alphabetic listing then. Just click on the species first letter to bring up pictures.

https://mammillaria.forumotion.net/f21- ... ias-a-to-z
Thank you DaveW 🙂 Mammilarianet is a great source , no doubt but if you don’t have a clue about what type of Mamm. you have in front of you, its pretty time consuming opening each letter in the alphabeth and then opening each species under that letter.. I know from first hand experience.. :wink:
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7george
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Re: Visual guide to Mammilarias?

Post by 7george »

More then 250 taxons ... there is no easy way to differ those. Some are very similar and full of variants. Also now Cochemiea is another group so Mamms got less in number?

Just don't focus on the names but enjoy the beauty...
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
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Mrs.Green
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Re: Visual guide to Mammilarias?

Post by Mrs.Green »

7george wrote: Thu Sep 15, 2022 12:58 am

Just don't focus on the names but enjoy the beauty...
Easier said than done.. :D Seeing a ‘new’ species, wether it’s cacti,birds or something else, I ‘must’ find out what species it is 🙂
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