A flower of caput-medusae

A flower of caput-medusae was open this afternoon. It is the 1st flower of caput-medusae in my place.
Sown seeds: 24/08/08
Germination:28/08/08
Seedling grafting:09/09/08
1st flowering:14/01/09
I have 23 of grafted plants and more flowers will be soon.

Amazing - simply shows the powerful benefits of grafting. Mine planted about the same time are only about a centimetre long and will be years before they flower. Well done Hana.

That is awesome. Your plants have grown fast Hanazono. They produce a nice flower.

It's a pitty the crosses and multi hybrids of this sp are not as exiting as you would expect

Beautiful!

did you pollinate it?

lewis
Unfortunatel the flower was just one and it seems pollen was too young.
I pollinated with myriostigma cv Onzuka and myriostigma v nudum cv khoyo kikkou.
I will check the flower this afternoon again.
Hanazono

Awesome work Hanazono.
I'm so impressed that you achieved this within 5 months from being sown.

Hellonasty
The same flower opened again yesterday afternoon. It seemed pollen was matured enough.
I crossed with 5 Astrophytum sp and 3 other genera sp in total.
I understand there are several F3 hybrids crossed with Astrophytum sp and the appearance is very similar to the mother plant by F2 hybrid.
This is first time I grow caput-medusae but I think this cactus is quite different from others.
Eg the attached photo looks like a flower bud but I think it will be a multi tubercles pup. I am wating the change.
I will also try to graft the flower like thing soon.

Good result!!
From sowing to blooming only in four months and a half!

I think it seems the crossing has completed successfully with 6 Astrophytum plants.
The photo is myriostigma cv fukuryu, one of plants with a fruit.

This is really exciting. Make sure to keep us updated.
You don't really have an issue with this anyway.

The attached photo is multi-tubercle pup, grown from the photo attached on 16/01/09.
I am not sure this is a normal caput-medusae pup or affected by grafting.

Now that looks interesting Hana. Since having seeing this plants characteristics I have never seen this before, I don't no if anyone else has.

Do you think it is worth cutting of the offset and grafting it at any point?

Kanja
Actually I tried to graft a small one and failed. It was too hot in here.
I may try agan when the condition meets the grafting.
I also have tried to root 2 tubercles, about 10 cm.
It is mentioned in the paper writen by Velazco & Nevarez "Caput-medusae is possible to root from tubercle cuttings."
Hanazono

Great work you are doing hanaz. caput-medusae never fails to present new and interesting aspects of itself to the cultivator.

I have seen the multi-tubercle offset thing before on grafted specimens (on pereskiopsis), but never on own roots plants nor in any habitat photographs, so I think its likely to be an effect of grafting (unnatural).

I have never heard of it being propagated by the rooting of the tubercles though, let us know how you go with that.

I crossed caput-medusae and got seeds from 6 plants.
I sown seeds from 4 plants on 01/02/09.
Only 2 seeds from 1 plant have germinated. (05/02/09)
It seems very poor germinatin ratio.
myriostigma cv fukuryu x caput-medusae
2 seedlings seem very healthy.

Interesting to see what they will end up looking like. Keep us posted Hana

Yeah, I'm very excited to see what they turn out looking like...

I grafted seedlings shown in the photo attached on 05/02/09.
In the photo, 2 seedlings were shown but actually 1 more came out, in total 3 seedlings.
I grafted very young seedlings, 5 days after germination.
3 of all were taken well. I cut bottom of stock and repotted this morning.
The photo was taken yesterday. The stock had no root.
I think the scion shows the evidence of hybridization. The color is not normal.

hi hanazono, i have a question for you, can you show me the way you use to graft young seedling to stok that are not peresk? im very interested but i've never tried this way because the lak of information(i have ever see the japanese growner made this tipe of graft but never tried it!)
thanks in advance Emanuele

Ohhh i can't wait to see what these turn out looking like Hanaz.

Thanks for sharing your hybridisation attempts here, very interesting stuff. Tinkering around with cactus genetics is always fun.

I found my caput-medusae in bloom when I came back from my business in the evening last Thursday.
Since sunlight was still remained, I could take a photo.
I did crossing. I believe I can collect some seeds.

That's quite a herd of caput-medusae that you have there. Very, very impressive!

Hanazono you do some amazing stuff very impressed.
I crossed ACM on myrio types and produced heaps of seed with poor viability. Grafted seedling all looked like myrio types. Also pollinated ACM with ONuka and other pollen set lots of viable seed. GRafted seedlings look vermuch like ACM but some have tubercles that are fat and heavy enough to fall off under their own weight.Now have f2 seeds off these ACM mother descendants. They should show a fair bit of variability if it is a hybrid but for now my money is on selfing. Hope they do cross as the potential for cultivars is mind blowing.
Many strange thing happen with ACM whem grafted. Pups from areole, multiple areoles on a single tubercle, multiple flowers from one areole (one had six!), tubercles from fruits, flowers growing out of the ends of tubercles and just when I thought it would no longer surprise me this happened! A crested flower! would be nice if this is followed by a crested offset growing fron the tubercle....
Also can confirm tubercles do root. not sure if plantlets will be produced though. Doesn't really matter though as they are prolific seed produces when mature.

cryptocarpa
Caput-medusae is quite new for me but it seems very different from other cactus.
I got seeds from a person, living in VIC last year. I sowed seeds on 24/08/08 and grafted some of seedlings. All my plants are same age and very young. I got information, as same as you mentioned, you could not expect any special things from f1 hybrid but it said f1 hybrid could cross with other genera. I have only 7 grafted f1 hybrid seedlings currently.
I hope it will happen sometings in next stage, f2.
Hanazono