Xerophyte

Habit

Plants solitary at first, later forming large clumps to 50 cm or more wide.

Central Spines

2-6, needle-like, brown or black, 8-12 mm long, 1-2 longer and hooked.

Seeds

Very large, up to 2.5 mm long, dark brown, rough.

Description

Mammillaria beneckeiSN|9048]]SN|9048]] is a variable species, usually offsetting and not very large. It has white radial spines and brown hooked centrals.

Note

Mammillaria beneckeiSN|9048]]SN|9048]] comes from a large area of western Mexico and has carried many superfluous names now reduced to synonyms. Systematically it differs from the rest of Mammillarias and when in bloom all the differences are evident. In fact it presents a floral tube up to 3 cm long and a corolla of bright yellow petals about 3 cm wide, one of the largest of its genus. Besides its seeds are quite large and rough compared to those of other Mammillarias, so much so that it had been erected for it the monotypic genus Oehemea.

Tubercles

Broadly conical, soft, often becoming reddish or purplish, without latex, axils with little wool and without (or with sparse) bristles.

Flowers

Large, but seldom produced, salverform, deep yellow (or occasionally even orange), 20-25(-35) mm long, to 30 (or more) mm in diameter. Stigmas deep yellow to orange. Unlike other Mammillarias, the flower lasts for a short time. The flowers open at night and close permanently around noon, almost like Echinopsis.Fruits; Slender, club shaped at the tip, red.

Stem

Depressed globose, tending to lengthen with age, green to greenish brown, and often purplish 5-10 cm high and 5-7 cm in diameter.

Radial Spines

12-15, fine, needle-like, white or yellow, with darker tips, 6-8 mm long.