Aylostera pygmaea

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ralphrmartin
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Aylostera pygmaea

Post by ralphrmartin »

You can never have too many different clones of Aylostera pygmaea....
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Re: Aylostera pygmaea

Post by edds »

Is it the whole bench Ralph or 'just' this end?!

They certainly have got amazing flowers.
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Re: Aylostera pygmaea

Post by Phil_SK »

Having realised that I'm going to have to rationalise my collection over the next few years if I'm ever hoping to repot anything ever again, I keep peering at my pygmaea and looking for likely cull candidates, particularly among the numerous fleshy-pink-flowered ones. But I haven't managed to pinpoint one yet. :roll:
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Re: Aylostera pygmaea

Post by ralphrmartin »

There's perhaps 4 or 5 metres of that bench which are A. pygmaea forms, and most of it is other Aylosteras. The far end of what you can see has A. steinmannii and einsteinii and a few others (and a few Chamaecereus right at the end).

I certainly have some duplicates in there as well as some one-of-a-kind plants. I keep saying I should rationalise a bit too.
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fero
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Re: Aylostera pygmaea

Post by fero »

Wow Ralph
Those are looking fantastic. What a lovely greenhouse, and nothing under the benches. Well done

Rational what's that. :oops:
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KarlR
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Re: Aylostera pygmaea

Post by KarlR »

Very pretty! A. pygmaea really is a lovely species. I don't know if there's any other species of cactus with such a range of different flower colours across all it's forms.
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Re: Aylostera pygmaea

Post by ralphrmartin »

Maybe if they were bigger they would not have all been lumped into one species... :grin:
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KarlR
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Re: Aylostera pygmaea

Post by KarlR »

Probably not. I'm moving towards dropping the ssp. and var. of many forms and calling them species instead. I have done so with Turbinicarpus schmiedickeanus and it's 10 or so subspecies, and I'm going to do the same with Thelocephala. I am considering doing this with A. pygmaea too.

In my experience, it seems that field biologists (particularly those from, or living in, N & S America) recognise far more species than many of the biologists and taxonomists not regularly working in the field. The latter seem to rely on cultivated specimens to a much greater degree, which I guess may be the main reason for it.

A Mexican biologist friend of mine who has spent countless hours in the field studying cacti, is of the opinion that a large number of described subspecies should be considered good species instead. His speciality is Turbinicarpus and I think he has visited all the habitats of all the species numerous times. He believes all the subspecies of schmiedickeanus are actually good species. Still DNA studies to be done though.
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Re: Aylostera pygmaea

Post by David Neville »

And there we have it......for decades the 'lumpers' and the 'splitters ' have never agreed on the taxonomy and naming of related variants and they never will, so let's just agree to disagree and accept cultivar names for the miriad of variants, so that we can all recognise the range of geographical variants that occur within a relatively small area ......
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KarlR
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Re: Aylostera pygmaea

Post by KarlR »

David Neville wrote: Wed Apr 28, 2021 10:37 pm And there we have it......for decades the 'lumpers' and the 'splitters ' have never agreed on the taxonomy and naming of related variants and they never will, so let's just agree to disagree and accept cultivar names for the miriad of variants, so that we can all recognise the range of geographical variants that occur within a relatively small area ......
It would be kind of boring if everyone agreed on the taxonomy, though :)

I am not a fan of using cultivar names for plants that are not cultivars. Those should be reserved for hybrids made in cultivation.

Geographical variants perhaps, but maybe separate species instead? Convergent evolution is very common in cacti and two forms that may look similar could in fact be separate species. And as for the size of the area, it matters greatly how far pollinators travel and how seeds spread. If each mountain top is an island of its own and genetic exchange between them is rare or non-existent then high levels of speciation would be common.

But I agree that recognising the different forms is a good thing. Whether as species, subspecies, varieties, forms, field numbers or a combination is the fun part :lol:
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