5 June 2008
Caput-medusae buds
Posted by Stuart under: Cacti .
It’s my first season growing Astrophytum (Digitostigma) caput-medusae, and I’m finding them fascinating to observe.
They certainly don’t seem to hang around; both my plants are producing new tubercles like it’s going out of fashion; in this photo you can see the new heavily-flecked growth clearly. Both my plants of this species are going to flower, too. This plant has a bud on the shortest tubercle visible towards the bottom-right of the shot.
My other plant has a bud halfway up an older tubercle. I’m hoping (even though it came from the same source) might be a different clone, as it has much longer tubercles than its companion. If I get flowers open simultaneously I’ll pollinate them from each other just in case they actually are different clones.
It’s hard to imagine that they’re of the same genus as the Astrophytum myriostigma in the background.
2 Comments so far...
Aiyana Says:
6 June 2008 at 7:13 pm.
This is odd, and hard to imagine it in the Astrophytum genus. I looked in my reference books and there’s no mention of this species. Is it particularly rare?
Aiyana
Stuart Says:
7 June 2008 at 7:13 am.
It was described as Digitostigma caput-medusae in 2001; when you see the flowers, its relationship with Astrophytum is much more obvious.
Because it’s a fairly recent introduction into cultivation it’s not all that easy to get hold of, over here at least.