Gymnocalycium id

[Jura]

Hey guys ,

I usually don't ask for ids as I'm trying to be crafty with Google lens and find it for myself. But I am really stumped with this one. I picked it up in local garden centre, relatively cheap only 5 euro. Its about 9 -10 cm in diameter. Hamatum looks closest, but color of spines are much darker on mine. Hopefully its gonna throw out a blossom for me for a definite id, but not expecting it happening any time soon...

Any input appreciated!!

[David Neville]

Looks like Gymnocalycium schickendantzii to me.....there's always a little variation in spine numbers etc.....

[Jura]

Thank you kind sir! I was looking up schickendantzii and thought it looked similar, and thought it could be it , but them some of them look so different , I might give another look at it

[iann]

Could well be. A flower would confirm, quite distinctive. I suspect there are a lot more plants of this out there than expected. I've seen them a few times in bulk outlets, garden centres, etc., no labels and easy to mis-identify.

[Jura]

I agree with you Ian.

To be quite honest i gave up picking them up in garden centres unless they have id or I can Id it myself straight away. But this gymno was hard to pass..

I looked at it and it might well be pungens, seem to be closest looking. However again I have a triple headed pungens from Cyprus cactus and they look just a tad different.

One thing I learnt from one of the kind people here is a distinct black dots that appear in Muscosemineum group. And this particular one seems to have it. So I would say it might well be pungens which is really close to schikendantzii.

[Detlev]

Gymnocalycium pungens is an old name of Czech origin. It was used as G. schickendantzii var . pungens, but published as species name in 1962 (but the description is not valid). G. pungens is only a form of G. schickendantzii with straight spines (the spines of G . schickendantzii are often hooked or curved at the end).
I agree with David Neville: Gymnocalycium schickendantzii!

[Jura]

Thank you very much for the input! It will go down as schikendantzii. I will also retag pungens into schikendantzii v. Pungens just to make sure it has a valid name.

I also have another gymno for over a year. I'm keeping it as baldianum hybrid (been told that its definitely it) however I have few other baldianums and 3 of them look very similar, just small variations in ribs and spines, this one is triple the size of any baldianum I have and those spines are not even close to be baldianum. Problem is it haven't flowered yet. One distinctive thing that I've seen while repotting was a massive taproot.

[Detlev]

Although the spines are quite short, it will be a form of Gymnocalycium monvillei. A flower could confirm this. But a hybrid is possible, too.

[MatDz]

John Pilbeam's "Gymnocalycium, A Collector's Guide" mentiones "weak spines" for G. baldianum, which yours rather clearly doesn't have, but the body itself looks like a twin sibling of mine (photographs below just downloaded from a mobile FB app, sorry for a terrible quality, plant is about 5 cm wide, and I don't remember if it had a taproot, but more probably a set of thick roots). That's unfortunately where my knowledge and memory ends, but maybe it's just a variation of baldianum?

Edit: Detlev's comments came while I was writing mine, and after checking G. monvillei the description fits quite well. Maybe mine is one as well, or yours is a hybrid between the two?

Edit edit: or maybe forgot all I have written, as I just had a look at https://www.cvcacti.co.uk/plants-for-sale and half of the Gymnos there have matching bodies!

[Detlev]

What I see in the Jura's pictures is that the spines are pale yellow and significantly thicker than those of G. baldianum.
Otherwise, of course, Mat is right: many Gymnocalycium look very similar, especially when young without flowers.
Mat`s plant may be a G. baldianum.