Mammillaria luethyi

[fatich]

This year only one flower.

[Mark07]

Mark that's really beautiful, well done! I look at mine quite often, not a sign of a bud

Thanks Juster, I really don’t treat it any different than my other Mammillaria or any of my plants for that matter. Must just be lucky!

[Mark07]

This year only one flower.

But some nice new heads forming by the looks of it

[Mark07]

My favourite plant in bloom today, along with its grafted friend so I have had the paintbrush out to see if I’m able to get them to set seed. Most likely both are clones from the same plant but fingers crossed.

[Diane]

Glorious! Mine are still small buds.

If you do manage to set seed, remember that the seed pods are set deeply into the plant body, so are not at all obvious. They take about a year to ripen, then you have to poke about with tweezers or similar to find them. Extricating the seed is rather difficult, and they often fall into the pot!

I’m currently inspecting my plants for seed, and have found a few. Germinating them is another matter, and can be very hit and miss.

Good luck!

[Mark07]

Thanks Diane .

I did find some seed when I first got the plant but as you say I had zero success getting them to germinate. I did some more careful rooting around in these and my two M.theresae who also have concealed seed pods and managed to extract a few from both theresae’s. I’m getting good germination with theresae seed but I’ve never been lucky with luethyi. Definitely a tricky one to germinate and most probably prefers to be aged seed.

[Tina]

Beautiful, lovely looking plants.
I put a tissue cuff around/underneath the plant so I can collect the dropped seed, get seeed but no germination but its good to have a challenge.

[juster]

That's just beautiful Mark, well done! Sadly my grafted plant has died, I think it got too hot and dry in the early Spring sunshine, although I did give it some water.

[Mark07]

Beautiful, lovely looking plants.
I put a tissue cuff around/underneath the plant so I can collect the dropped seed, get seeed but no germination but its good to have a challenge.

Thanks Tina, I also tried similar with the tissue idea and it did work for the ones that fell out. The ones that shot out onto the greenhouse gravel floor had no chance though

That's just beautiful Mark, well done! Sadly my grafted plant has died, I think it got too hot and dry in the early Spring sunshine, although I did give it some water.

Sorry to hear that Juster, I’ve read they can suddenly go downhill, especially the grafted ones.

[Diane]

Beautiful, lovely looking plants.
I put a tissue cuff around/underneath the plant so I can collect the dropped seed, get seeed but no germination but its good to have a challenge.

Now why didn’t I think of that? How stupid am I!

The first time I managed to collect seed (many years ago), I got almost 100% germination, but they slowly died over winter. I’ve never been able to replicate that success since. I don’t really know what the secret of success is with these plants, but you can only try.