Post ya Loph's

My latest edition.
Approximately 35.5 cm across at widest point. 6 mature flowering heads.

I'd love to see what's hiding out there so feel free to flash your buttons.

This one only has around 20 flowering heads

nice caespitosas! ...mine is much smaller, has only one flowering size head and still produced no single flower...maybe this season.. which is just about to come here in europe..

PS Here are my beloved thailandies...cant remember if I've posted them before..

oh my god how old is that beast IXOXI??

That is actually not a caespitosa - standard lophs will clump with age, and this one is going to be 41 years old this year. Just for the record, it would have been a physical impossibility for me to have planted the seed from this!

Pretty damn impressive. I have a few big ones but nothing as old as that. I love the look of the really old single headers. Especially when they get real hairy with a spiraled look.

I have not measured this one recently, but, I remember comparing it next to a basketball, and they were virtually identical in size.

My cluster produces more seed then I can care to plant. Yours must be an absolute seed factory!!

These are beautiful old plants. It's incredible to see specimens with decades rather than merely years behind them.

Wow numan those are some unreal loph's. Spectacular color.!

Awesome plants guys, fantastic variegation there numan

Very nice plants everyone

Just beautiful, keem em coming!!

Had the good fortune to have this show up in my seedlings a couple of years back. Its a williamsii.

Just stunning, crypto. I wish I was as fortunate as you.

I planted hundreds of seeds this year and nothing unusual yet. Does anyone have any idea what the odds are of finding a variegated/crested loph?

Sneaky, I would assume 1/1000 would produce some sort of freak.

Hn is spot on with that number for veriegates of L. Williamsii in my experience. The problem is that only about one in five variegates is a good one, nicely mottled and not susceptible to sun scorching. I have turfed out lots of seedlings for the sake of the selected few.
Interestingly the odds of variegates in L. Koehresii, L. Fricii and L. Diffusa are much better from my experience. Around 1 in 200 or less. I have one or more variegate plants of all these species.

Crests are much rarer in Lophs. I have only ever seen one definite crest and it was an offset on one of my friends forty year old plants. Of course I collected self pollinated seeds from that plant and have grown loads of offspring but the best I have got is dichotomous plants.

I think crests happen when the plant is increasing its rib numbers from say five to eight or more. Instead of creating just a few of the new initial cells in the shoot apical meristem that are responsible for producing all the somatic cells necessary for the new ribs I reckon there is a problem with the feedback mechanism that tells the meristem to stop producing new initials, and so, many initials are produced in a symmetrical line that forms a crest as the initials go on dividing into new cells.
I even think there is a mathematical formula that describes the process of going from the normal morphogenic pattern to the fasciated one.
I flunked year ten maths but I can see the pattern and have photo documented the morphogenisis of several fasciated meristems and they definitely have a distinct and consistent structural architecture. If anyone out there is into morphogenisis or heavy math I'd love some help to better define the way fasciated meristems originate.

Anyway because the point at which Lophs go from five to eight ribs take three or four years to happen getting crests means growing plants for at least that long, variegation is evident much earlier.
Another thing I have noticed though I am getting off topic is that crests are more common in species with many ribs. I think it is because they increase the number of ribs at more stages than species with few ribs. So for a species like T. Psuedopectinatus that has many ribs crest are about a one in a few hundred occurrence whereas for something like A.myriostigma I have grown thousands without a single crest.
All of this information is made somewhat redundant by the work Ix has done to develop a method for inducing crests with hormones, but then I think the details of that work are a closely guarded secret, so for now the rest of us a stuck inducing crests the old fashioned way by just selecting from heaps of plants...

I have never thought that more ribs equals a greater chance of a crest, but the more I think of your explanation the more sense it seems to make.

As for variegates I have grown(from seed) quite a few, Lophs, Astros, Trichos etc but crests I'm severely limited. I have grown 7/8 crests from Tricho Peruvianus Monstrose seed and probably 1/3000 for the remainder. The 1 was an extremely rare Pediocactus Knowltonii Crest which I treasure dearly.

I had'nt heard of IX's work what's he doing ?

I know that pediocactus crest of yours well, if you ever want it chopped up and multiplied I would gladly pay you a royalty on every plant sold! Same with any other unique plants anyone has.
I read a post about inducing crests in Ix cackie cube thread. What's he up to? I wish I knew....

cryptocarpa wrote:

I know that pediocactus crest of yours well,

Have you ever seen another Knowltonii crest? I've asked around and searched the net but never found one except mine. Must be quite rare, it was only one offset that crested but I had a look today and another offset is also cresting so I assume it's genetic.

No I have not seen another one of those and I would say it is most likely the only one in existence. Pediocactus are quite rare and there is every chance that yours is the only one to have crested.
I have an Escobaria lareodoi crest that I think might fit in the same category of unique plants because I can't find reference to another, but I reckon Pediocactus are far nicer than Escobaria so the luck is with you.

Yeash especially since I only had 25 seeds. Extremely lucky to say the least, I have degrafted it since last time I posted a photo, I will get another one today. It has grown quite rapidly.

WHOOPS just realised we are wayyyyyy off topic sort OP. I will post a Loph too I hope that makes up for it.

Spotted this yesterday, maybe a crest on cv. gigantea. Fingers crossed.

Bit early yet mate lets home.

I've not heard of that CV what is he character trait ? Larger plant ?