16 December 2007
Horns drawn in for the winter
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti .
The appearance of some cacti actually improves when they are kept short of water for the winter.
Mammillaria duwei – mine is a clone with a central hooked spine – is beautiful anyway, but the spination becomes so dense when the plant shrinks through lack of water that it’s like a feathery carpet.
Escobaria minima is another case in point.
It has beautifully-patterned spines anyway, but when they’re held tightly together they look altogether more wonderful.
This plant lost one of its (then) four heads about three years ago; the three shoots that have replaced it started to sprout the following year, which gives an idea of how slow-growing this plant can be.