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This plant is difficult to preserve in health, the best method being that of grafting it on to a short Cereus, or a robust kind of Mamillaria, such as M. cirrhifera.
We know of no plant in English collections, except that at Kew, which was introduced from Mexico in 1886. It flowers in September and October. A French writer on Cactuses, M. Labouret, calls this a species of Echinocactus, but it resembles so closely another species included by him in Mamillaria, viz., M. atrata, that we see no good reason for separating the two into different genera.
The nearest approach to this plant is Mamillaria longimamma, in which the tubercles are 1 in. or more long, finger-shaped, and crowned with a few hair-like spines. But the Leuchtenbergia bears its flowers on the ends of the tubercles, and not from the axils, as in all others. This peculiarity leads one to infer that tubercles are modified branches, the spines representing the leaves.
Treated in this manner, the following hardy species could not fail to be a success: Opuntia Rafinesquii and var. arkansana, O. vulgaris, O. brachyarthra, O. Picolominiana, O. missouriensis, O. humilis, Cereus Fendleri, C. Engelmanni, C. gonacanthus, C. phoeniceus, Echinocactus Simpsoni, E. Pentlandii, Mamillaria vivipara.
M. vivipara is quite hardy in New York, as also are several other kinds, whilst we learn that by planting them out in summer, and protecting them by means of a frame from heavy rain, dews, fogs, and sudden changes of weather, a good many species of both Mamillaria and Echinocactus are successfully managed in the neighbourhood of that town. Cultivation.
This is a beautiful flowering plant, more like an Echinocactus than a Mamillaria. It should be grown in a warm greenhouse all the year round. Old stems develop offsets from the base, by which the species may be multiplied. This is closely related to M. bicolor, but differs in having an unbranched stem and numerous richly-coloured flowers.
And some displayed horrid dropsical bellies; some had spines bossy with hideous humps, and others looked like dislocated skeletons. Mamillaria threw up living pustules, a crawling swarm of greenish tortoises, bristling hideously with long hairs that were stiffer than iron. The echinocacti, which showed more flesh, suggested nests of young writhing, knotted vipers.
Some species of Mamillaria and Echinocactus develop young plants from the tops of their tubercles; and this also points to the probability that the latter are branches. In Leuchtenbergia, the tubercles fall away as the plant increases in height, leaving a bare, woody stem similar to that of a Yucca. Cultivation. The Leuchtenbergia has always been difficult to keep in health.
In the Succulent House at Kew, there is a long shelf upon which a great many plants of this genus may be seen. But the flowers in some of the species of Mamillaria are quite as attractive as the stems. Those of M. macromeris are 3 in. long and wide, their colour a deep rose; M. Scheerii has equally large flowers, and coloured bright yellow, as also are the flowers of M. pectinata.
Something over 300 different kinds of Mamillaria are known, but only a small proportion of these may be considered as garden plants. They are characterised generally by short, symmetrically-formed stems, sometimes aggregated together and forming a dense tuft, but, as a rule, each plant has only one stem.
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