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Habit: Usually solitary
rosette-shaped geophyte cacti with dark green verrucese
tubercles..
Stem: Subglobose, markedly depressed centrally, to 6(-8.5)cm
wide, rising no more than 2.5(-3.5)cm above ground level in habitat,
with an extensive mucilage system.
Tubercles: Not crowded or basally compressed, adpressed in young
individuals, becoming ascending, olive-green or grey-green. triangular
in outline, deltate in cross section, adaxially flat but becoming
conspicuously concave at maturity, usually longer than broad (to 3 7cm
long and 2cm wide basally), asperous at base and irregularly papillose
at apex, sometimes with the papillae forming one or two lateral furrows,
sharply acute to acuminate apically, and with the edges sharply acute.
Aeoles: In the centre of the adaxial surface of the tubercles,
8-14mm from the tip, rounded to more or less elliptic, 2-5mm diam,
woolly.
Spines: None.
Flowers: Up to 2.5cm long, outer perianth segments cream coloured
inner perianth segments pinkish-magenta, filaments white, anthers
yellow; pistil exerted above the stamens, white, style 13mm long, stigma
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Cultivation: Need regular
water in summer but very
prone to rot other times of the year, Moderate water in
spring an
autumn, no water in
winter.
Full sun,
half shade.
NOTE: Ariocarpus bravoanus clearly shows a close affinity
to the previously described
A. fissuratus var. hintonii that occurs approximately 75km
further north, these two probably represent extremes of the same taxon.
A. bravoanus is particularly interesting as it represents a link
between the former subgenera Ariocarpus with an undivided or
fully divided areole and Roseocactus subgenus with the areolar
fissure.
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