VOLUME 14 :: January—October, 1952 Illustrations shown in ...

THE CACTUS AND SUCCULENT January, 1952
CACTUS CULTURAL NOTES
By A. BOARDER
I have been asked by a member how the spirals are counted on Mammillarias. This question arises out of the
descriptions in Craig's Mammillaria handbook, in which he shows that the spirals on these plants are arranged in
series, both in a clockwise and anti-clockwise fashion. They run from the top of the plant to the base, and if the
plant is examined from the top, the spirals will be seen quite easily. If a small piece of tissue paper is fixed to one
of the tubercules as a guide, the plant can be turned round and the spirals counted back to the mark. Craig gives
the number of spirals of most of the species of Mammillarias and states that they can be recognised by these numbers
of spirals. This may be of some use when dealing with mature plants in America, but I do not see that it can assist
us very much in this country where so many of our plants are grown from seed. When I came to test the value
of the spiral count I chose a Mammillaria rhodantha var. pfersdorffi which had been raised from seed by me from
a parent plant raised from seed obtained in 1927 from Haage in Germany. Craig gives the plant, M. rhodantha
as having 13 one way and 21 the other. My seven-year-old plant from seed has 21 spirals one way and 34 the other.
This caused me to examine the other plants I had raised from seed of the same variety and found that a one-year
seedling showed no noticeable spirals at all, whilst a second-year plant from seed had 10 spirals. A five-year plant
had 21 spirals. It is quite obvious to me that one cannot possibly expect to find the large number of spirals on the
plants he describes on a small seedling Mam., and at what age the plant is expected to develop the necessary spirals
by which it can be recognised we are not told. I consider that the rate of development of the spirals will depend
on how quickly the plant matures. It certainly appears to me that the number of spirals are likely to increase as
the plant increases in size, and I shall make a note of the plants in question to see if the spiral count changes.
In the October issue of the Journal I gave a list of Cacti species suitable for a beginner and I now add a further
list of different genera so that the grower can extend the range with other plants some of which are not so easy
to grow or yet to acquire. I have raised from seed plants that are mentioned and so it is not impossible to obtain
these kinds, although I must admit that some of them were grown before the war. They are : Ancistrocactus
scheeri, Ariocarpus fissuratus, Aztekium ritteri, Bartschella schumannii, Cleistocactus straussii, Cochemia halei,
Epithelantha micromeris, Frailea schilinzkyana, Harrisia bonplandii, Homocephala texensis, Lophophora williamsii,
Mamillopsis senilis, Neobesseya missouriensis, Pelecyphora aselliformis, Selenicereus grandiflorus, Solisia pectinata,
Thelocactus bicolor, and Stenocactus lamellosus.
Included in the above are a few plants which are more difficult to grow from seed than the previous plants
mentioned, but with some care in the early stages it is quite possible to get reasonably-sized specimens in a year or
two. The Mamillopsis senilis is a fairly quick growing kind from seed but after about four years many of these plants
seem to go wrong. Such plants as Epithelantha micromeris and Ariocarpus fissuratus are slow from seed and beginners
will be well advised to let someone with more experience raise these for them ; the latter species is particularly
slow from seed. In a later article I shall give a few more uncommon ones and gradually deal with some fresh
species of some of the Genera mentioned.
I promised in the previous Journal to give a complete guide to growing Cacti from seed. I know that I have
dealt with this subject before, but I get so many enquiries on this subject that I feel sure that it will be well worth
while to deal with seed raising once more. Most growers find it difficult to believe that I can get my seedlings
to grow as quickly as I do, and the plants which I usually take with me to a meeting of the Society are examined, as
a rule, with amazement, and I am always accused of having blown them up with a bicycle
pump. I was able to tell the members at the meeting on November 6th, that I now had another pump ; one which
blew the flowers on them as well. This because I showed a Mammillaria rettigiana plant which had been raised
from seed sown in February this year which was already in prominent flower bud. Since that meeting I have
noticed a seedling, sown at the same time, of At schiedeana, which also shows two flower buds.
This proves once again that it is not the long winter's rest which assists the formation of flowers, nor being
pot-bound. It ties up with my constant reminder that a plant will flower if it is grown well. I notice that an
article on raising Cacti from seed was published in the March Journal of 1933, being a resume of a talk I gave to
the Society, and a photograph of a number of my seedlings was published at the same time. It is interesting to
note that my methods have not changed very much since then, but it is surprising that as I have been regularly
giving away my methods since that time there are so many members who say that they cannot get anywhere near
the same rate of growth. I am at a loss to know why this can be and to clear up any doubts once and for all I will
give now the exact method which I use, and then if this is carried out there is no earthly reason why everyone
else should not be able to grow Cacti from seed equally as well.