Myeloblast

That's one very nice kotschoubeyanus plant, has the nicest features of both plants!

It looks to be completely rotten now Zyppel, likely developed root rot from the repotting that traveled up into the body of plant.. sorry but it's definitely done for at this point. Maybe too much organic material in your mix or watered too soon after repotting without enough heat

Cristate flower on a pup from a crested asterias cv. muscle kikko

Took some pics of a few plants that almost died in a move...thought a few of these wouldn't make it. Damage is from sunburn after being boxed up. The last of the four I just thought was looking nice This last one is a tubercle graft from a really nice ariocarpus that started to rot after bad sunburn. All attempted tubercle grafts died, I held on to them though hoping I might get some growth later on..10 months later a few heads look to be forming

Astros are starting to form a few flowers, took some pics of some various plants in my collection

I would think the latter nut, rot could enter from any wound be it a broken tiny root or a cut in the tap root, or even healthy plant tissue subjected to persistent moisture. So convergence, did you cut or no? I asked a thai friend of mine who grows and sells cacti (mainly astrophytum and ariocarpus) for a living in thailand... he does not perform these cuts, as they too often predispose to rotting, unless you have a lot of experience with this method. There are others in thailand who do it though with success. If your ariocarpus collection is small, I would not do this, because I think the risk to lose the plant is decent... Btw here's a pic of an ario that this was performed on:

It's not, as coahuilense is easy to cross with asterias, while myriostigma is not. Their flowers are different, in particular. This is from cactus-art: "Astrophytum coahuilense with five ribs, has a surprising similarity to A. myriostigma. However, it is different in all characteristics regarding flower, fruit, seed and embryo which looks like in all details to Astrophytum capricorne. The differences into flower, fruit, seed and embryo and flecks are constant and permit in any case to distinguish Astrophytum coahuilense without problems from A. myriostigma "

The line of fur and growth at the union is any number of growing pups...could be 2, could be 10, but looking like 2. Some might come out normal, others variegated just like the OP plants

Whole crop of variegated Astrophytum seedlings...probably 75% variegation and 25% that lack all chlorophyll From cross of myriostigma cv. kikko nudum variegata X myrio cv. hakujo fukuryu Hopefully I'll have plenty of seed from this cross available next season for a giveaway...already pressed for space as it is

My experience has been the same as Sally's using pads, I'd be interested to hear more from people who had success with them. There was a tek described somewhere about using O. compressa seedlings to graft other seedlings to it. I bought seeds, germinated them, and never got around to grafting...

Beautiful plants, how old are they sagi, zed, and nrivers? Grown from seed? I tried growing some of these from seed purchased from Koehres with no luck on germination at all, the B. candelaris germinated well, but not nearly as pretty a plant. Some good pics of a huge hertlingiana in here: http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=20299

Have you had much chance to grow out the strictum clone djmatt? I've been eyeing it on ebay for a while now, lots available from that particular Italian source..wondering how they grow out.. I don't believe the large-spined myrtillo crests are different, they are just from more mature, larger stock plants grown in more sun. The normal Myrtillo's develop huge spines at a certain size with enough sun. There is at least 1 other seemingly unique myrtillo clone, a spineless columnar form that looks a lot like melting wax TBM. And of course, variegated forms of the regular myrtillo and the crested myrtillo. This is not my photo, or my plant: Myrtillo's are one of my favorite cacti too, such beautiful specimen cacti and one of the best grafting stocks hands down.

This is a common propagation technique for Ariocarpus and Astrophytum, to get clones of very nice plants (none of these are mine unfortunately):