Xerophyte

Central Spines

3 - 4, straight, purplish brown with lighter base, 8-15 mm long, lower one hooked and longer than others, all dull purplish brown or lighter at base, hooked one porrect, others spreading and not easily distinguished from radials.

Seeds

Black, minutely pitted.

Description

Mammillaria angelensisSN|916]]SN|921]] is a small columnar cactus usually simple, sometimes clustering with white radial spines and dark brown hooked centrals. The flowers re white or pink with darker midviens. Do not confound with Mammillaria san-angelensis, a different rare specie native from close to the city of Mexico.

Taxonomy

Mammillaria angelensisSN|921]]SN|921]], Craig (Mammillaria handbook, 165, fig. 146, 1945), belongs to the Mammillaria dioicaSN|921]]SN|916]] complex, and distinctions from M. dioica are not clear. M. angelensis is described and is shown in Craig's figure as having narrower perianth segments, but other plants of the Angel de la Guarda island have segments as in typical M. dioica. For his collection from Arroyo Estatón, George Lindsay noted that flowers were variable, from small to 3 cm long, with perianth segments from white with pale pink midstripe to deep pink with maroon midstripe. Both them may refer to one species.

Roots

fibrous.

Tubercles

Conical, terete in cross section, slightly keeled centrally, 8-9 mm. long, 6-7 mm. wide at base, blue green to olive-green, in 8 and 13 spirals, juice watery.

Flowers

Up to 20 mm long and 30 mm in diameter. Outer perianth segments linear, obtuse and short-ciliate at apex. There are distinctly two colour forms recorded, the first, as originally described is white, with pinkish midstrips at the tips of the outer petals, often narrow and quite widely separated; the second form is much more deeply coloured, with deep pink petals and maroon midstripe, stigma-lobes on both forms are yellowish olive-green. Filaments white.

Stem

Globose to short cylindrical, 10-15 cm high and 5-6 cm in diameter, without latex.

Fruits

Clavate, red.

Axils

Densely white-woolly and with 15-20 tortuous white bristles to 10 mm long.

Note

The name comes from an island off Lower California which is its habitat.

Blooming Season

In Cultivation (Europe) from Arpil to July. In Habitat from March to April.

Radial Spines

16 - 20, needle-like, straight, smooth, stiff, white or somewhat tan at tip , 5 - 10 mm long, nearly horizontal except in youth when ascending.