Plenty of rings on other Mammillarias.

Lastly, plenty of pollen in this Echinocereus flower, but nowhere for it to go.

I just noticed your tagline " Fallen out of love with Lithops", so I've posted a gallery of them in the hope of rekindling the love.

New Lithops leaves usually come through with very vibrant colours. This relatively muted not-so-warty L. verruculosa shows the bright colours of the new leaves. verruculosa-0512.jpg And L. bromfieldii var mennellii, never muted but very striking now. mennelli-0512.jpg Even this L. meyeri, hardly kno...

This Echinocactus polycephalus is putting out its two (occasionally three) new aeroles for the year. The red-spined forms are *very* red at this stage (and in the rain). The yellow-spined form behind less red, but still quite bright.

Ominous bulge on the side of this old Echinocereus dasyacanthus. Looks like another arm starting to break through in the messy way they have.

Here's one with pollen. And here's an Ecinocereus with none.

I love those! One very cold winter killed off the ones I had in the garden and of course that was the year I didn't have any cuttings going. It wasn't as big as Patrick's though

You've got a great set of mesembs flowering this spring!

It is coming up to 20 years old. There is some black discoloration around the areoles, but not enough to hide the white spines. Unless you look closely, it just emphasises how white the spines are. You can see it here from a couple of years ago.