Flowers and Fruit of the Genus Mammillaria

joebowman.scienceblog.com – Mammillaria or the nipple cactus is one of the most popular of all cacti genera.  Named for the characteristically pronounced tubercles, mammillaria as a genus are globose to barrel shaped either solitary or clustering and branching to trailing.  Many species have latex sap and typically dense spination.  Geographic distribution varies from the northern states of Mexico throughout significant portions of the southwestern United States.  Plants are notable for their heat tolerance.

Flowering mammillaria

Forming a crown around the plant flowers bloom throughout the summertime.  Colors ranging from light yellow to dark magenta with some species having a midstripe running laterally down the petals.  Flowers are highly variable but are typically small and cup shaped.

Fruiting mammillaria

Many species of the genus mammillaria are self-fertile.  Fruit develops within the body of the cactus and is long and slender to club shaped.  Waxy greenish but typically red skinned fleshy fruit with heavy mucilage making quick extraction of the seeds rather challenging.  Seeds vary in shape and color between species and are very small usually in the range of 1 mm.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Photographs by Joe Bowman

2 thoughts on “Flowers and Fruit of the Genus Mammillaria”

    • Hey thanks for the comment Pawan!

      I’ve got some mammillarias with crowns of flowers – I was thinking about taking some pics and posting them.

      If you like succulents like these go to my dedicated site: https://sites.google.com/site/succulentcity/home

      Also I *just* switched over to the new Google Sites so most of the pages need to have their formatting fixed, but check it out! LOL!

      Reply

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