duly noted not to buy that genus. Here's something to add to temptation - "Cacti are very sexual plants." Hmm. Anyway to the point, re seed setting this author is quite clear that Frailea set seed copiously UNLESS the flower opens, in which case no seed can be expected. I hadn't heard thi...

Thanks very much Tony for that clarification/reminder. Interesting if Stuart still managed to obtain plants and how, later, not that I have any personal interest in that.

Is my memory right that the ISI list was published regularly in the BCSS journal and there was a UK person through whom plants could be ordered? But this was discontinued some time ago?

MalcolmP2 wrote: ↑Mon Jun 24, 2019 1:15 pm

I must soon decide when to prick-out those seedlings, or just nip some off to give room , , , ,

Leave them alone for now, maybe a few months, is my advice. As always, best left alone until they are really crowded. Even then, the strongest will make it....

For the purpose of BCSS publications, the Society tends to stick with the nomenclature used in the "New Cactus Lexicon" and the "Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants", but in some respects these are becoming increasingly outdated as new information, particularly from DNA seq...

Tephros etc look a very interesting bunch, for laters :) Over the last three years I have had some, but not a lot of, success in germination Tephrocactus seed. Nothing I tried seemed to make much difference to poor germination rates. This year I just sowed and treated as normal, and I had fair resu...

Tina wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2019 12:24 pm Looking good and looks like lots of new growth going to happen

Thanks for the encouragement!

Two weeks on and the flower opens.

Puny achievement, but after 40 years .......

but life's not perfect and I like them both. Very nice! How long since you sowed them ? Well I think they were sown in 2016 as that's the only record I have of sowing L. pugionacantha. But my record doesn't (uncharacteristically) show the variety so I am not 100% sure, especially as it shows I had ...

Two seedlings from same packet, labelled Lobivia pugionacantha v salitrensis WR636, showing very different flower colours this morning, on their first (simultaneous) blooming. Draw your own conclusions, but life's not perfect and I like them both.