Astrophytum caput-medusae

[gerald]

Bought as a seedling 3 years ago it hasn't grown much, just a single extra stalk and the same 2" pot, but it flowered today for the first time, needless to say I'm thrilled

acm.jpg (63.41 KiB) Viewed 2241 times

[Pia]

Wonderful flower! I just bought this plant and cannot even dream that it would flower some day.

[rodsmith]

Delightful, Gerald.

[DaveW]

Usually flowers quite easily as a graft Pia, mine did within a year of a tubercle being grafted, but don't know if it does on own roots though. I think it's just a case of the flower bearing tubercle being large enough.

[Pia]

Thanks, Dave! I'm so skeptic regarding the flowers because I have had difficulties in providing a place for adequate winterrest. As I wrote elsewhere, I have two not-so-succesful attempts on a glazed terrace. Last winter I put two Echinopsis in a basement (no light and about +10 C) for 4 months. One of the cacti begun to produce a lot of babies, but neither one has flowered so far!

[Lyn]

Thats BEAUTIFUL Gerald :-) thanks so much for sharing :-)

[Terry S.]

I have had several attempts at growing this and found it very difficult. I now have a plant on its own roots that I have kept alive for about 12 months! Two tubercles flowered earlier this summer with single flowers as one would expect. However the third tubercle to reach flowering size this year has a split areole with two flower buds developing on it. Has anyone else observed this! Another thing that surprised me was that the earlier flowers did not open until the afternoon and then were finished after about a day. Very un-Astrophytum like behaviour.

[Eric Williams]

Hi Terry, sorry I cannot help you, but your post is of interest to me as I have some seedlings of this species growing. Wonder if you could post a picture of your plant on its own roots.Thanks

[Ali Baba]

Hi Terry, I haven't found it difficult to grow on its own roots. I have 2 older plants I grew from seed, but I did lose three of their fellow seedlings the first winter. A combination of keeping them too dry in their first winter and extreme susceptibility to thrips. My second generation seedlings did much better as I left them in the propagator for the first two winters and kept them watered. I haven't had any double flowers, but one of my original seedlings is much beefier than the other and produces larger flowers with a lot of petals, and bigger fruit. I'm wondering if it is a tetraploid. They are very odd plants indeed

[DaveW]

Yes weird plants since the flowers spring from an areole about quarter the way down the tubercle which suddenly appears, even though there is no visual trace of it before it does! However I did have one flower from the end of a tubercle, but that is unusual.