Description
Mammillaria bombycina cv. Split Spine is a rare cultivar with special “split spines”. This is an exclusive feature never seen in other cacti.
Habit: Plants often form large clumps up to 80 cm wide.
Stems: Globose to club shaped, bright green, 7-14 cm tall, 5-6 cm in diameter.
Tubercles: With dense wool and bristles in the axil.
Central spines: 3-8, yellow with dark reddish brown tips, straight, and up to 11 mm long. The lowermost one is 20 mm long hooked, peculiarly forked or split forming two lateral accessories spines.
Radial spines: 30-64, stiff, thin, needle-like, glassy white to yellowish white, up to 8 mm.
Flowers: Funnel-form, bright pink, up to 15 mm in length and in diameter.
Origin and Habitat
Garden origin (Nursery produced cultivar)
Cultivation and Propagation
Water regularly in summer, but do not over-water (rot prone). Use a pot with good drainage and a very porous potting media. Keep dry in winter. Feed with a high potassium fertilizer in summer. It is quite frost-resistant if kept dry, hardy as low as -5° C (some reports give it hardy to -12°C). Outside full sun or afternoon shade, inside it needs bright light, and some direct sun.
Propagation: Grafting, division of larger clumps.
Bibliography
Major references and further lectures
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Edward Anderson “The Cactus family” Timber Press, Incorporated, 2001
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James Cullen, Sabina G. Knees, H. Suzanne Cubey “The European Garden Flora Flowering Plants: A Manual for the Identification of Plants Cultivated in Europe, Both Out-of-Doors and Under Glass” Cambridge University Press, 11/Aug/2011
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David R Hunt; Nigel P Taylor; Graham Charles; International Cactaceae Systematics Group. “The New Cactus Lexicon” dh books, 2006
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John Pilbeam “Mammillaria: the cactus file handbook” Cirio Publishing Services Ltd Dec/30,/1999
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Fitz Maurice, B & Fitz Maurice, W.A. 2013. Mammillaria bombycina. In: IUCN 2013. “IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.” Version 2013.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 20 February 2014.
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