Nice photo, Baja. A lot of the Mammillarias here seem willing to bloom. Karwinskiana, a M. species, and M. rhodantha have been blooming for weeks. Rhodantha is really measured in months now and still has new buds growing. Now M. plumosa has started to bloom. The open bloom didn't quite make it out of the fuzz and while the buds are now ringing around the barrel, they are hard to see because of the fuzz. I expect that's all about to end. The first dip below freezing is supposed to show up Wednesday and then be in the upper 20sF on Thursday night. I expect those temps and the resulting move indoors until the spell blows past will put a damper on bloom activity. Here's the M. plumosa today.

That plant has started up here too.

@Baja_Costero
It looks like the blooms on your M. plumosa is out above the foliage. Looks better that way. Maybe when mine has been around longer, it will do that as well. However, it needs to do its blooming a bit sooner. Normally it would still have around a month to go before the cold temps arrive. Not this year. Two weeks ago everyone was wishing for cooler weather. They didn't mean this cool .

Sorry Donald, that was me.

Baja_Costero said:That plant has started up here too.

@Hamwild
I'm confused. That's easy, I know. This is your cactus? Or are you confessing you're the cause of the early freezing weather? If so, as soon as all the plant funerals are finished because I couldn't manage to get them all into a safe zone I'll have something to say to you! LOL

@needrain, the freezing weather. Now that you've given me a heads up, let me pack my bags and be on my way!

Baja_Costero said:That plant has started up here too.

Well now your just bragging...

Saturday the high was 75, Sunday, 45. Last night, a low of 25. I didn't get the memo until the 11 news. Shut and drained the irrigation system at midnight. I left Toshi the Terrible Terrier in the house because of resent coyote and bobcat sightings. The irrigation system might have been ok but, it was already below freezing at 11 and the bird bath had an inch of ice!

Hubby, who is in CA this week thought it was all funny. BUT, he called me yesterday afternoon because his internet had gone out, the wind was blowing and he couldn't figure out how he would know if it was time to evacuate. Hmmmm.... Reverse 911? He'd never heard of if.

Those crazy winds are headed here tomorrow and I am not leaving home if I can help it. All roads north of here were shut down last time, and this event is supposed to be the most extreme of the season. Everything will change after the first rains, but at this time we're at maximum flammability.

Incidentally, those warm, dry conditions really make the Mammillaria flowers pop, including the natives. They open up all the way and proudly display their sex parts.

Like this? Mammillaria hahniana

Exactly.

Mammillaria (part-time) Un Pico is in bloom!

Seems about the right time of year . My pilcayensis also bloomed( mentioned in the chat).

Holiday cacti! Those bloomin' mamms! I was going to take a photo on Thanksgiving, but it turned out to be a misty, overcast and cool day and none of the blooms opened. I know it's hard to see on a couple, but these all have blooms and quite a few buds still to come.

Vetulla gracilis, muelhen whatever, karwinskiana, rhodantha and plumosa.
My own vet-g is has been blooming for months now. K has buds, muelhen-p has no sign of flowers and neither does the rhodantha, and i dont own a plumosa

All correct Stefan except I only have M. muehlenpfordtii as a possible match based on your suggestion earlier. It was purchased as M. species without any further designation. You also gave me another possible match which I didn't keep up with. It's somewhere here on an NGA post. At the time, though, it wasn't blooming. Does that help?

The M. rhodantha has been blooming non-stop since June or July. My first photos of it blooming are in July, but I didn't take photos until it had been blooming a couple of weeks and decided I'd better take one before it stopped blooming .

Its that one (muelhenpfordtii). Dixanthocentron was the other suggestion
https://cdn.shopify.com/s/file...
but as you can attest, the blooms are different. Some of mine are budding, and photos(still buds) later...

Okay Stefan. I've changed my photo tag to 'probably' from 'possibly'. If there was a consensus agreement that it's the correct i.d., I'd add one or both of these photos to the database. Mine is not showing any sign of dichotomous growth yet, but has changed from a globular form to growing a bit more cylindrical. There aren't a lot of photos of M. muehlenpfordii in the NGA database and all of those show the dichotomus growth, but I wouldn't want to add to the database without being reasonably sure it belong there. Accuracy is important in re to the DB. Anyone else care to add their thoughts - Baja? Daisy?

Idk about that. Dichotomous growth can happen, sometimes its rare, sometimes its a usual thing for a species.But mind you, usual =/= always. There is an exception to every rule...
My own muelhen-whatever now has its growth centers turn a bit oval, stretching out sideways. I dont know whether or not its a indicator, but time will tell...

And it wasnt like this before, that im certain...

They are a LOT more oval than they used to be...

Now for the buds (btw im NOT posting this in the regular chat, out of sheer redundancy)



And im pretty sure these are very early stage karwinskiana buds, given how the other mams behaved thus far prior to blooming(pilcayensis mostly).

They are somewhat cone shape, and stick out where the tubercules are...