Berengar

I guess these are in the Parasola genus now. Psathyrella previously.

A few more pretty optica rubra pics for you, Pim. ;)

Personally, I would accept, and even welcome, Pimento with his cactus army as the ultimate dictator of the world.

Exactly. That's why high humidity causing glaucusness makes sense to me, water droplets on the skin would have magnifying effect, so the plant would be incentivized to produce the wax to protect from solar radiation.

Some say full sun, some say shade, but I noticed that in my experience it has a lot to do with humidity, spraying the plants with water or foliar ferts (best at dawn) made even the ordinarily green ones go slightly glaucus, and made the blue ones even bluer. Now, it may be a coincidence, but the 'control' plants did not change colour.

Amanita sect. Lepidella. They are beautiful.

Looks similar to plants from Huancabamba to me.

Does anybody know how likely it is for a 2 mm seedling to already show crsted characteristics and to continue growing in this way? Or is it more likely that this appearance was caused by some sort of damage and the plant will revert to normal growth?

I looked at my grafts today, one validus and one werdermannianus took, they are both growing nicely, and the werd seems to be going crested, but is still tiny. I'll post some pics when they grow a bit more.

I think your 2nd picture is the standard Koehres 'pachanoi', as sold some 5-8 years ago. I have a plant probably from the same seed batch, with those characteristic long radial spines, but grown in very strong sun and looking a bit more 'fierce', but essentially very similar. I'm assuming it has some cuzcoensis genetics. It's a very good looking cactus.

Nice! #10

Visit Italy then. ;) Lots of gardening and cactus fairs, very low prices for most plants. Every year is a different 'theme' at thos particular one, this year that was monstrose forms, personally I was not happy about that. Pachanoi crests, boob myrtles, lophocereus, castanea, tbms and such 'common' monsters, all for under 10 euro. I managed to find a huge Lobivia fallax for 5E amongst the freaks, was very happy about that.

Nope, not a cactus. I'm not sure you can graft them to anything, maybe there is a compatible plant, but I never saw it done. They are quite sensitive, in my conditions at least, they would probably do much better in an arid climate with low air humidity.

At one gardening fair this year, every cactus stand had several castanea monstrose specimens, 15 cm tall rooted spiralis were going for about 8 euro each. Large rooted TBM crests for 20. Monsters were kinda the theme this year apparently, never seen them sold there before.

I just can't resist!

Amazing giveaway as always, Pimento! I know I have far too many seeds already, but that terscheckii X scop just sounds too good to pass up!

I would just like to share a recent experience. I received an unrooted Stapelia grandiflora cutting about a month ago, it rooted quickly and started growing, and yesterday I noticed two flower buds on the new offset. So since it's a small plant cutting with barely developed root system, I'd assume it has a lot to do with the age and maturity of the plant, like zelly said.

This would make it a Bolivian species, right? Makes sense then that it shows certain traits of other Bolivian species, if it's more closely related to them instead of those from Peru.

Visited my little garden for the weekend. Everything is coming along nicely.

But considering the variability in genetics and growing conditions, Echidnopsis cereiformis should be a fairly accurate name.

Not Echinopsis, EchiDnopsis. ;) I know it's not a cactus. It's in the Asclepiadaceae subfamily, same as Stapelia and Trichocaulon. I'm 100% sure about the genus, not so much on the exact species.

Absolutely beautiful! It is an Echidnopsis species, flowers point to E.cereiformis, but the body shape is slightly different. Regardless, it's one of the most stunning specimens I've ever seen!

Thanks very much guys. I wasn't aware that pollen doesn't fare very well in transit. I'll try to source it closer to home then. Btw, fallax is definitely forming buds now! If nothing else I'll try to cross these two. Thanks very much for the offer zelly, but I'm not sure if the customs would allow live plants into the country, it's about 50/50, and I'd be sad to loose a nice plant to them.

Hey guys, I have a very nice and fat globular Echinopsis hybrid which has several flower buds, and my Echinopsis fallax (yellow flowered) looks like it will be pushing them out soon, and I would like to make a few crosses, preferably with something more columnar. Anything from spachianus and grandiflorus to pachanoi or terscheckii, but even any other Echinopsis would be great. Buds are still small, probably a couple weeks from opening. I have various very hot pepper seeds for trade, or small amounts of several Trich hybrids. I'm in the EU btw. Thanks!

Stipe stubs attract fungus gnats which then lay eggs on them, and larvae often proceed to eat the mycelium after they're done with them, killing the organism. So neither method is without flaws, with species growing on flimsy substrates.