Gymnocalycium-Is this unusual behaviour?

[Robert P]

Hi All,

I have a gymno that came out of Notcutts. I always assumed it was just a freidrichii/mihanovichii type one, until the buds and flowers came.

This may look like a good show, and it is:
[attachment 20458 Flower.JPG]..........

[Robert P]

But is it normal for the flowers to come from a tiny offset?
[attachment 20459 Oddness.JPG]

[puffermac]

Cant help you with the answer Robert but great show, my 2 gymnos flower a lot but only one bud will open at a time.

[DaveW]

Offsets will obviously flower smaller whilst still attached to the parent plant than they will if removed and on their own roots, or a seedling that size. Just as a grafted scion will flower much smaller due to the vigour of a more mature stock underneath it.

Still that offset is pretty small to flower.

DaveW

[Chris43]

I have seen this on one of my Gymnos, whose growing point seems to have been damaged. It grew some offsets very high up on the plant body, and has flowered from both the main body and from a couple of these offsets.

It looks as though your growing point is fine, so why the offsets have grown so high up on the body is a mystery. Many Gymnos offset quite profusely, but usually around the plant sides. Not sure about your plant species,maybe mihanovichii as it seems to have a dark brownish body and quite acute ribs.

[Diane]

I think these offsets sometimes form due to aborted flower buds, I have a couple of gymnos with similar offsets.

[Lindsey]

Interesting indeed! Great plants Gymnos, often keen to give us a surprise

Some forum members might recall my "double-decker" G.denudatum,
http://www.bcss.org.uk/forum/read.php?1 ... #msg-53970
A few months ago I noticed the lower "deck" was rotting... I twisted off the upper "deck" (aborted flower bud) and rerooted it in very sandy compost, and more by luck than good management, it rooted and has flowered!!

[Chris43]

That's interesting Diane, I've seen that behaviour on some of my Notocacti - never on the true Parodias though.

[Peter B]

Hi Robert

Your plant looks like my specimens of G. tudae which were grown from Mesa Garden seed at least 15 years ago. It does have superficial similarity to the mihanovichii complex. Graham Charles and others have reduced it into synonomy with G. marsoneri ssp megatae along with other species such as pseudomalacocarpus, holdii and hamatum. In all the pictures I can access the flower coloration is white with occasional pink petal tips. Even the first description of tudae by Y. Ito says the flowers are white so there is perhaps a possible case for these plants in our collections having some hybrid 'blood'. I also have an ancient specimen (at least 40 years old) of the same species which is now massive and far taller than the suggested height in the description. Whilst being part of the Muscoseminium group of Gymnos as is mihanovichii and stenopleurum it is not the same as the former which has greenish flowers. Though pink flowered, like stenopleurum, it is nowhere near as notably marked as this species. If any hybridisation has occurred through the years I would look to stenoplurum as the contributor.

As others have said it is not unusual, in cultivation, for offsets to come from aborted buds. Also it is common for these offsets to flower within a year, though smaller than the parent plant.

Peter B Manchester Branch

[Succulentimon]

it's so cool! what I mean is that in the short span that I became registerd on this forum I have seem on more than one occasion oddities that I myself am experiencing too for the first time (in my third year of cactuscare).

this also happened to me
[attachment 20490 KopievanDSCN6768.JPG]