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F. santa-mariae
Is a beautiful plant with stout, fierce red spines.
Description: F.
santa-maria is a massively spined barrel cactus, usually solitary. It is
a close relative of Ferocactus peninsulae.
Stem: Spherical to shortly columnar, up to 75 cm high, and 25 cm
wide.
Ribs: About 13, blunted, straight.
Areoles: Large, oval, 2 cm long and 12 mm wide, with yellow-brown
felt.
Central spines: 4, quite straight and hooked up to 4.5 cm long,
the lower three (middle) are the longest, flattened, sometimes curved at
the apex..
Radial spines: About 15, the upper 12 bristle-like, light colored,
the lower 3 look like the middle ones, and
are often counted along with them, in
which case the central spines are 7 and the radial 12
Areolar glands: They are found between the flower’s bud and the
spine cluster in the flowering areoles.
Flower: 3.5 to 6 cm long and 4 to 7 cm wide, yellow or
straw-yellow with a pale-red center line on the petals, pleasant-smelling.
Blooming season: August-September.
Fruit: Yellow or yellowish green, fleshy, 2 to 5 cm long and 2 to
3,5 cm wide, with lasting Perianth.
Fruit wall approx.. 3 mm thick,
pulp extraordinarily juicy, at the beginning slimily, glassily, with
fruity taste soon drying, fruit then opening by a basal pore.
Seed: dark-brown or black, 2-2.5 mm long and 1.5 mm wide; Testa
with a fine polygonal network;
Hilum small, approximately 0,5 mm in diameter.
Cultivation: Slow growing
to start, but
it does well under cultivation.
Use very draining soil, water during the aestival growth
cycle (this plant need plenty of water).
But it's necessary to avoid
wetting the bodies of these plants while they are in sunlight. A wet
cactus in the sun light can cause sun burning, which can lead to scars
or even fungal infections and death.
Needs full sun. Keep dry at 10°C in winter,
but it can tolerate sporadic light frost.
Reproduction:
Seeds are the only way of
reproducing.
Photo of conspecific taxa, varieties, forms and cultivars
of plants belonging
to the Ferocactus peninsulae
complex
(This
Taxon has various
synonyms ( like many other
cacti) with several controversial
varieties and subspecies, and comprises a multitude of different
forms, but where each form is linked to others by populations of plants
with intermediate characteristics):
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