Xerophyte

Central Spines

5-12, much stouter, slender, needle-like, straight, pubescent, orangish, yellow, with darker tips, 4-9 mm long.

Seeds

Black, pitted slightly depressed; aril white, triangular.

Description

This is a very nice crested Mammillaria, easily recognizable for its dense hairs among the dense yellow spines, covering the stems. It can form in age a large convoluted mound. The standard Mammillaria proliferaSN|9303]]SN|9303]] is one of the smallest members of this large and diverse genus of low-growing cacti that will clump profusely eventually forming thorn bundles 30-50 cm across or even wider. It is very free-growing and produces flowers in considerable profusion, but it is particularly decorative for its bright red fruits that last for weeks.

Roots

Fibrous.

Tubercles

Cylindrical to conical, soft about 8 mm long, spreading and arranged in 5 -8 spiral lines.

Flowers

Funnel-shaped, borne on old axils but toward top of the plant. Cream or pinkish-yellow coloured, 10-18 mm long. Inner tepals erect, acute, cream-white-yellow, outer tepals with brownish mid-rib; filament pale rose coloured; anthers at first deflexed inward; style shorter than filaments; stigma lobes 3, yellow.

Stem

Soft-textured, fan shaped, forming tangled, brain-like mound, dark green and about 3 in width. Without latex. Axil almost naked or with few to several long hair-like bristles.

Radial Spines

25-40, often intergrading with the centrals, straight or twisted, yellow to whitish, bristly to almost hairlike, 3-12 mm long.

Fruits

Club shaped to cylindrical, somewhat curved, red, 15-20 mm long crowned by persistent dry perianth. The fruit are edible with a marked flavour of strawberries, along with a pleasant acidity. Some say that it has the most strawberry taste among cacti.