A coryphantha Solved

[Guest]

The cooler weather and (a suprisingly) well timed watering has brough my coryphanthas into flower, I have dozens all at once but this will do as an example. This is Coryphantha wohlschlagerii PM268 and is one of the strangest I have. It has an enormous tap root, you can just see the top, which is like a parsnip. Then a very narrow neck which eventually opens out into a normal plant. I am not brave enough to bury the neck. In winter the plant shrivels badly and lays down but it pops up again in the spring even before it is watered. The plant is about 12cm tall and in a 3 inch tall pot, this is needed to get the tap root in, actully there is very little compost in the pot.
I have two of these plants but only one is flowering this year, I got them 2.5 years ago from Germany when they had not really developed the adult spines.


Has anybody any experience of this type of plant.

[Guest]

A picture of the flowers, I used a macro lens on my new digital SLR camera for this and it is my first attempt. It does show the value of the camera over my previous standar digital.

[AntonyC]

Nice pics Bob, very sharp and clear.

Ant

[Maria J]

Interesting plant and beautiful flowers! (and great pics too!!)

[iann]

Very strange!

[Bill]

Very Nice Bob, The plant with it's root and stem is not disimular to some of the Turbinocarpus.

What camera and lens have you got?

[Chris in Leeds]

Nice pics. what do you use to label your plants it looks better than pencil or pen.do they last longer than writing on labels

[Süleyman]

Hi Bob,
Magnificient flowers and photos. Congratulations. I don't have this sp. (but it is on the way from Cactoo nowadays.) It is obvious that your treatment for this extraordinary plant is very appropriate. I note that C.wohlschageri is somewhat similar to C.pulleineana (see my photos in my site).
Regards



Post Edited (08-01-06 16:55)

[Guest]

Hi Bill,

I have a Canon EOS 350D the macro lens I am using is a Canon EOS Lens 60mm EF-S f/2.8 USM MACRO.
I have just invested in a tripod as well, to be delivered tomorrow hopefully.

[Bill]

Ah the replacement for the 300D which I have, very nice.

So is the lens, I must admit I had considered it, but it's a bit short for doing bugs etc, I am hoping to get the Sigma 150 macro.

At the moment I using a zoom lens and extension rings which isn't bad, but has it's limitations in that you can't use the lens for any thing other than macro work with the rings so it's a lot of faf taking them off and putting them back.

And if that shot was hand held at macro, then you should notice quite a difference with a tripod, remote release is handy as well, means you can go for small aperture, max depth of field and not have to wory about shutter speed.

Getting carried away here hope I am not being patronising.