Home | E-mail | Plant files | Mail Sale Catalogue | Links | Information | Search

All the information and photos in cactus art files are now available also in the new the Enciclopedia of Cacti. We hope you find this new site informative and useful.

  Mammillaria mainiae (= mainae) CACTUS ART
NURSERY

Cultivation and Mail Sale
of Cacti and Succulents.


Flowers pinkish white with sharply defined magenta midstripes, with a broad open throat. style pink, stigma lobes bright red to red-purple, orange, or magenta.
 

Description: Small branched or (generally) unbranched in the wild. The branch (if present) are basal and not numerous, seldom rooting.
Stems: Globose to ovoid, firm, grey-green or blue-green, sometimes reddish in axils, 6 - 7 cm high, 10 - 12 cm in diameter; cortex and pith not mucilaginous; latex absent.
Tubercles: Cylindrical, becoming conical, somewhat incurved.9-18 × 3-9 mm, arranged in 8 and 13 spirals, protruding 12-15 mm axils appearing naked.
Areoles: 1.5 mm in diameter, and typically 10 mm apart.
Roots: Diffuse, upper portion not enlarged.
Spines: Rather dense, partly obscuring the stem brightly colored than M. grahamii yellowish, pale pinkish tan, or brown (smaller spines paler), tipped dark chestnut brown to blackish, glabrous, sometimes ± pubescent when young.
Radial spine: 8 - 15, yellow becoming white, with dark tips, slender, needle-like, to 12 mm long.
Central spine: 1 - 2, porrect (extended outward or horizontally), hooked, stout, brown or yellow, with dark tips, 11-20 mm long . The hooked central spines are turned counterclockwise in the areoles around the stem.
Flowers: Around the apex of the plant 2-3 × 1.5-2 cm; outermost tepal margins densely fringed, inner tepals pinkish white with sharply defined magenta midstripes, with a broad open throat.; style pink, stigma lobes bright red to red-purple, orange, or magenta.
Fruits: Bright orange-red, spheric to obovoid, 5-7 × 4-4.5 mm, filaments are pink, 3 mm long remaining beneath the spines, juicy only in fruit walls; floral remnant weakly persistent.
Seeds: black.
Flowering season: June and July.

Cultivation:
This is very slow growing species that requires the brightest light possible. Water sparingly, needs good drainage as roots are easily lost in pots that stay damp for any length of time.
Require  a mineral-based potting mix .
They need to be kept dry in winter.

Propagation: Seeds
(if available), but usually easily propagated from the offsets.

 

Photo gallery: Alphabetical listing of Cactus and Succulent pictures published in this site.

Photo gallery MAMMILLARIA


Advertising



 

Family: Cactaceae (Cactus Family)

Scientific name:  Mammillaria mainiae
Author and first description by: M.K. Brandegee, in: Zoë 5(2): 31. 1900. (as Mamillaria mainae)
Type locality:
South of Nogales, Sonora, Mexico.

Origin: USA (Arizona), Mexico (Sonora, northern Sinaloa)

Habitat:  Sonoran desert plains (grasslands, bajadas, valleys, washes, and alluvial fans) or in sand dunes, rocky slopes and hillsides, usually in gravelly soil. More often on plains with Ironwood and Mesquite and Southwestern Oak Woodlands communities, from [60-]600-1200m. This plant is a rare and
endangered in the wild.
Mammillaria wrightii var. wilcoxii, which grows all around Nogales, Arizona, is easily misidentified as M. mainiae.

Conservation status: Listed in CITES appendix 2.

Common Name: Counterclockwise fishhook cactus (This cactus is distinguishable by way of the hook that are oriented laterally and their general pattern shows a clear counter-clockwise (anticlockwise) orientation, hence the name. The tendency for all spine hooks on plants to be oriented in same direction is not unique to Mammillaria mainiae)

Synonyms:  
  • Neomammillaria mainae (K. Brandegee) Britton & Rose
  • Chilita mainiae
  • Ebnerella mainiae
 



The yellow, ball-like spine masses are dominated by the large, hooked central spines, which form a counterclockwise whorl.

Home | E-mail | Plant files | Mail Sale Catalogue | Links | Information | Search

All the information and photos in cactus art files are now available also in the new the Enciclopedia of Cacti. We hope you find this new site informative and useful.