Echinocereus viridiflorus    4/11/22
This species, which you can find, I think, from Wyoming and South Dakota in a broad swath of the US Southwest to Mexico, is actually super variable. Note the central spines of this plant. They are so dark red that they look black in this picture. Other populations have white central, white with red tips, and no centrals. I'm playing with selecting for some of the color variations of this species. One reference claims that these get to 30 cm (12") tall. I've only seen these in habitat about the size of the end of my thumb to nowhere near 30 cm. My domesticated plants are getting over 10 cm tall, and I've been worried that somehow I've let some strange genes into my crowd. Maybe not. I will endeavor to grow one 30 cm tall. I have more than 1000 of them. They spend all year outside, so no valuable greenhouse space is taken up. The pot, above, is 6 cm on a side. I just had a thought. There is confusion between Echinocereus chloranthus, which can get 30 cm tall, or more, and E. viridiflorus. Maybe the person looking at a 30 cm tall plant was looking at a chloranthus.   (13/40)   

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