Mammillaria tetrancistra

[Ali Baba]

I have a small potful of seedlings of this plant. Last year I noticed tiny flower buds but nothing happened.
This year I note the same flower buds are there, looking healthy and very slightly bigger.
Is this normal for this species? I presume at some point it will actually flower....

[Tony R]

Best of luck, Alan. Mine usually die before they flower but I think Diane has a super one

[Diane]

Ah, but mine is on a graft, Tony! I've had seedlings in the past ( easy to grow from seed), and only one ever survived for more than two years. Even then, growth was minimal, and never got to flowering size. I acquired a seedling a few weeks ago, it will be interesting to see how it fares (or not, as the case may be!)
I think Sylvia might have one on its own roots, not sure whether she has flowered it.

If there are buds, I think it would be advantageous to water it, sometimes buds abort due to dryness, and given we're due to have a heatwave, it should be safe to do so!

[iann]

They can certainly flower at a small size. The buds can also seem to take forever to turn into flowers. I suspect they may need some water at some point to move them along, or maybe just particular conditions.

This is from last year, looking quite fat. It had probably been watered by late August. The same plant this year is much spinier, but has three buds that have been lurking for many weeks and have just pushed through the spines in the last few days.

[Ali Baba]

Lovely flower Ian, hopefully will be posting one of my own if we get some decent weather. My seedlings are about 1.5-2cm across and doing their best to burst out of the pot they were sown in. I keep meaning to pot them on but each time I see those spines I put it off!

[iann]

I was just poking through my image albums and found that I have a photo of, I think, the same plant in flower taken on the exact same day in 2014. Just to prove that August 26th isn't the only day that these can flower on, this is from July 2014:

[Ali Baba]

Excellent, looking forward to 26th August!!

[gerald]

I just have this one plant, loads of buds but they seem reluctant to open all at once. Pic below was taken 2-3 weeks ago, and even now it's still budding & flowering. This is one of those Mamms that needs lots of sun. I'm not totally sure without going to the greenhouse to check but I think I use a mineral substrate for this one too, in which case it gets its nutrients from all the dead flies it seems to attract

mt.jpg (226.57 KiB) Viewed 1283 times

[Sylvia]

Carrying on from Diane's posting I have three I grew from seed several years ago two on their own roots and one I grafted. I plucked up courage this winter and repotted them and they seem to be doing fine. I haven't a picture of the flowers very remiss of me must photograph them when they next flower.

[iann]

Didn't have to wait for Aug 26th. It is certainly a shrunken spiny ball this year. I've been planning on standing it out in the rain, but every day they forecast thunderstorms and so far nothing.