Kew Gardens

[Marlon Machado]

Fantastic pictures Mike! Good light, good composition, in special the Echinocereus shots. That Faucaria has indeed amazing teeth, makes me wish to grow one! Any idea of which species it is?

Cheers,

Marlon.


EDIT: I quickly searched google for similar looking plants, and two possible names for this species are Faucaria tigrina and Faucaria felina. I am sure the mesemb specialists in the forum will be able to tell if Kew's plant is one of these, or something else!

http://www.cactus-art.biz/schede/FAUCAR ... igrina.htm

[Mike P]

Hi Marlon
I have several of these labeled as F tigrina but none with such a good set of teeth as the one at Kew. I have sourced them from various locations and grown some from Kirstenbosch seed and conclude that they are very variable.
Mike

[CoronaCactus]

Great pics Mike!
My wife and i hope to visit Kew on our way back from South Africa in September. We extended our trip 1 week to allow a stop in the UK

[iann]

That plant looks like Faucaria tigrina which typically has more teeth than F. felina, although the real distinguishing features are in the capsule.

F. tigrina is described as having 8-10 teeth along each side of its leaves but this can vary. On your plant, I think I see one leaf with 12 teeth down one side. F. tigrina is somewhat variable but much of the variability we see in cultivation is likely to be due to hybridisation with F. felina plants. Some of the plants offered as F. tigrina are frankly just not that species and never have been.

F. felina is described as having 3-8 teeth along each side of its leaves, those teeth usually being on the outer half of the leaves giving it a distinctly different appearance to F. tigrina. F. felina is far more variable, particularly with the inclusion of most of the original 30-odd names in this one species.

[Cactigirl21]

I am going to Kew Gardens next Tuesday and after looking at these pictures I am even more excited

[Mike P]

Mammillaria sp. unclear....
[attachment 17332 Mammillaria.jpg]

[Mike P]

Another Echinocereus - pensilaris?
[attachment 17333 Echinocereus.jpg]

[Mike P]

Opuntia vestia looking very healthy
[attachment 17334 Opuntia-vestia1.jpg]

[Mike P]

And another Pterocactus - tuberosus I think.
[attachment 17335 Pterocactus-tuberosa1.jpg]

[iann]

Are you sure that's M. luethyi? Looks more like one of the M. saboae clan.