BCSS - Forum

I've just found this in full flower in the GH.

Here's a bud.


The plant is rather floppy so difficult to deal with and even trickier to photograph.


Without an added background. This is the best flower display this plant has produced since it was moved to Scotland 5+ years ago. My 3 other plants are still erect but not in flower right now.


Background added with great difficulty.



For those less familiar with the newish name of this plant it used to be known as Akersia roseiflora.

Absolutely beautiful Colin.
Yes icosagonus can wander around the greenhouse.

Has anyone flowered B. icosagonus subsp. icosagonus? My plant is much slower growing and hence smaller than subsp. roseiflorus. The stems are also significantly thicker so it doesn't flop around in quite the same way.

My plant of subsp. roseiflorus grew to be "massive" when we were living in Bedfordshire with branches growing all over the place in the GH. There was no way it could be transported so in preparation for the big move north I chopped it into 6 plants, two since given away. One of these I've managed to keep growing erect to a good height, but the biggest plant, now in glorious flower shown here, just does its own thing.

Despite being unruly, this is probably my favourite cactus when in flower.

That's a cracking looking plant.
Thanks for sharing.

Here's my Borzicactus icosagonus in flower last year, presumably ssp. icosagonus as it's not pink:

ralphrmartin wrote: ↑Sat Aug 06, 2022 2:26 pm Here's my Borzicactus icosagonus in flower last year, presumably ssp. icosagonus as it's not pink:

Borzicactus icosagonus.jpg

Thanks Ralph, that looks like B. icosagonus subsp. icosagonus to moi.

Do you find this a slowish grower or does it romp away? What about branching? Mine branches from the base whereas subsp. roseiflorus tends not to branch from the base but higher up the stem. But compared with roseiflorus I've limited experience with subsp. icosagonus, namely I have a single plant.

If anything, I'd say it is on the slowish side. I've only got a single plant too, which I've had since 2006, and it's now perhaps 40-50cm high, with one branch at the base.

It's rather a shy flowerer, too.

I don't grow either subsp. icosagonus or subsp. roseiflorus but I have a plant that I bought from Graham Charles in 2011 that was labelled Borzicactus icosagonus GC 1057.02. In 2012's Bradleya he made both roseiflorus and humboldtii subspecies of icosagonus and my plant, being from Peru, is icosagonus subsp. humboldtii. Graham says that most of the plants in cultivation as icosagonus are this subspecies rather than subsp. icosagonus and i wonder, Ralph, whether your plant isn't this too. His key has subsp. icosagonus with largely unmodified flowering areoles and hairly pink flowers but subsp. humboldtii with extra spines in the flowering areoles (noticeably longer in my plant) and orange-red flowers.
My plant flowered for the first time this year. The long spines caught my attention maybe a month before I could see any flower buds. I didn't take any photos of the flowers but they were orange-red. I set a fruit, conveniently, allowing you to see the almost hairless flower tube.

Hi Phil, interesting, and I wasn't aware there was a further subspecies. I just have it as the species, rather than any particular variety.

I haven't noticed any extra spines or longer spines where it flowered, but I'll go and double check tomorrow. It's certainly more orange-red than pink.