I heart Astrophytum

I'd would have to say the genus Astrophytum is easily my next favourite genus after Ariocarpus. I have only been cultivating them for about a year. They are such a fascinating genus with many different vatieties, forms and cultivars. The Japanese cultivars are truly stunning and am working on getting more of these unusual types into my collection. The Japanese cvs. are not too common here in Aus and over the coming years I intend to collect many of them via seed with the intention of grafting and hopefully getting out there amongst the community.

So far I have several plants from the genus and my favourites are Astrophyum asterias, Astrophyum asterias cv. SUPERKABUTO & Astrophytum capricorne.

In the top pic you can see in the foreground A. asterias, 2 A. asterias cv. SUPERKABUTO, A. myriostigma var. nudum & not so clear is an A. asterias X A. capricorne.



...and an A. capricorne of a decent size that I really like. This intersting species can get quite large given time.

...and a flowering A. asterias fma. nudum, which doubles as my avatar



I will post more pics of my other astros when I get batteries for my camera.
I hope you all enjoy viewing the pics as much as I have enjoyed growing these plants.

They're definitely very cool little plants... every time I go to collectors' corner I find myself drooling over some of the specimens they have there.

How will I get my hands on some A. capricorne?

They look quite difficult to transplant - would that be a fair assumption?

Is it legal to import seeds of cacti from international suppliers?

Generally it's not legal, and if it's CITES listed then you need to pay for the CITES certificate too. Good luck getting them through quarantine and customs though.

I would say they are probably one of the easier Astros to cultivate, but like all Astros they present certain difficulties in cultivation. So transplanting is left until the plant is rootbound basically, this avoids unessecary root zone disturbance.

I can get you some A. capricorne seeds if you like or you can buy them at cactus-seeds.com.

I have only ever seen these plants for sale three times since I have been collecting, I bought two of those and one sold on ebay the other night for a decent price. I didn't buy that one. You just have to hunt around like I do to find cool collectable plants.

To give you a an idea of the size of those plants, the A. asterias is about 7cm wide and the A. capricorne is about 9-10cm wide.

Nice plants Trigonus, I really love astros too def my favourite sp. What cv's are you growing from seed ?

Cheers mate. Currently I have A. myriostigma, A. capricorne. A. asterias, A. asterias 'TEXAS' & A. asterias fma. nudum. All pumping along and have a bit of mixed batch too, will have to ID them when they get bigger. Am looking at getting some more interesting Japanese cv seed if I can find a decent supplier for those.

Some nice plants there. I really love the look of the "usual" or typical A.Asterias

Yeah, same here, just picked up another one of the same size, so looks like I am going to be self sustaining soon with my A. asterias, very keen to start breeding them.

i have got seed from international suppliers in the past with no hassles. I was under the assumption it was legal tho?

Not sure what the exact legal status is. I know someone who recently had their seeds consficated by quarantine, they also sent him a nice friendly letter that they had found his seeds and he had his first warning. As far as I know they are lenient to a point then they just say that's it and destroy your seeds.

Bummer! That said it is my opinion the more seed coming in from OS the better, there is no other way the diversity of plants can possibly spread through our country otherwise.

Not sure why they are such fascists with seeds as they contain no soil, and I myself am pretty clued in on whats a weed and whats not a weed and how to control plants if they become weedy. I was in weed control for over 5 years

But by that very token look at opuntia and mimosa (not a cacti) - absolute noxious weeds in this area - trig...you'd know it... hornet I'd trust... but there's a multitude of idiots out there!

It's always the way... A few ruin it for the masses.

Oh yeah Opuntia vulgaris (I think it was that species) was classed as noxious weed (in the 70s I think) and they hammered it with the Cactoblastis bug eventually. Still a problem in some areas obviously, very hard to get rid of.

You definitely raise a good point, and this is EXACTLY why the laws are in place. It is probably for the best, wish there was a way around it for serious collectors though.

Do you know what weedy species of Mimosa it is you have up your way?

M. pigra I think.... It's sensitive plant... but not the big version (pudicia??)

It's everywhere!!!

I can't walk five metres without being stabbed by its little spines! Horrible stuff!

Spines are OK, as long as they are growing from a cactus I don't mind

trigonus wrote:

Spines are OK, as long as they are growing from a cactus I don't mind

Generally speaking I agree - but when you step on a cactus and relocate it because it's embedded in your foot... I think you can quite easily say a few words that would get me banned from this forum...

The Mimosa - it's horrible stuff... You can't walk barefoot on ya lawns - it's annoying! I have patches of it everywehre... Spraying it does very little - but it is entertaining to touch its leaves and watch them fold up...

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Or would it work out better if we all pitched in and bought it in bulk from the southern states?

I probably wouldn't mind the odd seed here and there - but wouldn't want to pay the $$$ to get it all imported seperately.

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I am ALWAYS interested

I am very interested... PayPal ok?

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all cacti are cites, teh whole family....but seeds fo App. 2 dont need special paper work....App. 1 does, even seeds. FYI

i think the onyl way is to do it legally...but phytosanitary and CITES papers doesn't mean it will get through Australia customs...those guys, and i say this in the nicest way possible, Nazi's!

seriously though, i have had all but ONE package taken by those guys. no soil or bugs or anything....i even washed the seeds one by one to get rid of any fruit juices/pulp! seeds, cuttings, bare root plants and pollen have all being stolen, i mean quarantined, by the customs there


bulk orders are a good idea, but make sure you get in contact with your officials, dont want to see you buy thousands of seed and them jsut say "sorry!"

I wonder why your pakages always get seized Kada? I know of quite a few people who rarely have an issue with importing seeds. Strange...

You do not need anything, an import permit or anything, provided the species being imported is legal. there is no reason why a parcel containing permitted seeds is going to get confiscated unless the parcel contains contaminants (soil, other organic matter, other seeds, etc)

hornet wrote:

i have got seed from international suppliers in the past with no hassles. I was under the assumption it was legal tho?

It is legal. provided the specific species you are trying to import is a permitted species. you can check here:

http://www.aqis.gov.au/icon32/asp/ex_querycontent.asp

simply type in your requested commodity (genus) and check whether your requested species is on the list of 'permitted species'.
eg. a search for 'Astrophytum' returns:
end use: seeds for sowing.

Table 1: List of Permitted Species. These species may be imported subject to the conditions ''C7100'', C7179, C7180, C5012.''

Astrophytum asterias

Astrophytum capricorne

Astrophytum caput-medusae

Astrophytum coahuilense

Astrophytum myriostigma

Astrophytum myriostigma var. strongylogonum

Astrophytum ornatum

Astrophytum senile

Note: Any species not listed in these tables are prohibited entry into Australia.
Condition ''C7100''





Importer’s Responsibilities:
1. An Import Permit is not required.
I have got 90% from my seed from overseas and never ever had any hassles.

any cultivars of the above species are legal but sometimes Aqis may get baffled by eg. "astrophytum asterias cv. 'Syiowa supar' or using cactus language and abbreviations (eg. cv. fma. var.etc) they dont understand. generally though if both genus and species is stated you are right to go, import at your leisure...

Thanks for that Lewis. I was looking to import seeds recently and looked on the AQIS site but got put off by all the legal jargin.

I might start looking again with a bit more confidence this time