Mammillaria roseoalba Lau1170 - for Maurillio

In response to a pm, Maurillio asked for photos of M. roseoalba, so here is one of mine, the Lau1170 version.
If others here have photos of a M. roseoalba, then please post.

one of my three is like this, but if you look at page 253 of mammillaria of john pilbeam you can see spines shorter a lot and whitish flowers......
i try to post my photos....

Here is another species of M. roseoalba, it's collected by Steven Brack, SB285.
http://www.kakteensammlung-holzheu.de/mammillaria_roseoalba.html

well.......
another brik in the wall!!!!

Nice plant, Ralf, one day my SB285 will be like that...I hope!

mammillaria roseoalba SB 285

...

LAU 1170

this is the third different roseoalba.
she comes from plapp/greenhouse in germany and she has not f.n.

another roseoalba from plapp/greenhouse.
is similar to the previous but bought two years ago
but is so similar to m.formosa...............

..

Hi Maurillio,

I do not think your last 2 pictures are M.roseoalba. The 2nd last seems to have radial spines which M.roseoable does not have and it could be something in the heyderi group like subspecies gaumeri.
The last one could be, has you say, M.formosa

Tam.

LAU1170 and SB285 are so different.......
but we have not photos of roseoalba with f.n. ML463 or REP389.

..

M.roseoabla Rog 589.

do you remember the colour of flowers?

Lau 1170 has the longest spines of any roseoalba collection. The flowers are the normal colour, white with that pink centre stripe down the centre of the petal. The plant has just started to produce flower buds and should be in flower about Feb - March time.
I have the following collections which I have grown from seed in the last 4 -5 years...Lau 1170, ML 463, PN 235, PN 235, SB 285 and Rog 589. The plant above came from Rogozinski.

Tam.

mr. tam is possible to have photos of the other roseoalba in your collection?

This is habitat picture M.roseoalba ML 463 taken by Micheal Lacoste.



I have not come across Herr Plapp before but Helmut Rogozinski is a German and writes alot in the German Mammillaria Society Journal.

My other plants of M.roseoabla are just very small plants, having been grown from seed, and at the momment can provide no information.

Tam

this is a roseoalba from web - i can see L1170

Hmmm.....very interesting indeed.
What is the younger plant that is shown in the photograph posted at 9:49 pm? This looks closer to my plant which was labelled as Lau1170, but having seen these other plants, I am no longer usre that it is right, and might be instead a form of magnimamma perhaps. The longer spines, curved upper spine and different flowers.....? certainly not what is described or shown in the photos above.
I bought it at ELK, but don't remember from whom I bought it. Ah well, another one to search for again...

I thnk that Tam is right about the two plants from Plapp that look closer to formosa or heyderi.
I bought some plants by mail order from Plap in 2005, but none of these had field numbers. They were fine and correct.

My roseoalba L 1170

roseoalba SB 285

Roseoalba - Mesa Garden seeds n. 870.8

thank you ento.

this is the second roseoalba L 1170 of my collection.

Botany Helia Bravo wrote : (briefly)

the specie is closely related to m. magnimamma, with which it is perhaps conspecific and represents a well defined geographical diversity, fully differentiated for floral characteristics.
Plant 6 cm in hight and 12 cm in diameter, arranged in a pyramidal tubercles 8-13 or 13-21 series spiral, central spines 4-6, the higher and the lower 15 mm long, coffee colored, the other 5-6 mm long, cream with dark tip. The white flowers with a pink midstripe. No radial spines, sometimes 1-2 small that fall.
Pilbeam describes with spines to 8 mm long, he write that the plant is in the style of m heyderi. (Mammillaria a collector's guide)

I think that my L1170 may correspond to the description of Dr. Bravo, while SB 285 and MG870.8 match the description of Pilbeam

After looking at some of the photo's above I have to agreed with Chris, that there is a question about some of the L 1170 plants. Some of those plants seem to be more of a magnimamma type plant with the large tubercles and long spines.
M.roseoalba is placed in the same group has M.magnimamma in Series Mammillaria. Recently Rogozinski and Plein have speculated, and I agreed, that M.roseoalba is more closely related to M.heyderi and sholud be placed into the Heyderi group.
Lau 1170 was collected West of Cuidad Victoria, Tamaulipas on 20-6-78.
Rog 589, M.roseoalba, was collected at Altas, Cumbres west of Cuidad Victoria and another 2 km futher on Rog 590 was collected. This plant is a maginmamma type plant, M.bucareliensis var. tamauilpa.
So depending on how far West Lau was, his plant of L 1170 could be the M.bucareliensis tamauilpa

Another aspect to consider when looking at Lau Field collections, is the way Lau collected.
Once he had found a plant he would return to the site year after year to collect seed to sell on. He gave these futher collections the SAME field number. Also when he wented on these collecting trips he would take the boys from the home with him. Once he was at the site he would show the boys the plant he was looking for and then send them off to collect the seed.
This method of collecting was, I belive, unique to Lau and mistakes could easliy be made and I belive futher mistakes were made made at the cleaning and packing process. I am always carefull to look more closely at any plant with a Lau field number

I have to ask maurillio, you mention a study of M.roseoalba, what are you studying and what are you hopeing to achieve in your study. If you could tell us we may be able to provide futher information or give you some better direction.

I've just been to the greenhouse and looked at my young seedling of roseoalba ML463. It appears to have more subcentral spines than the habitat plant shown, and the upper one a bit more more central than the others and curved (reflexed). But this is a young plant, and location of spines often changes as the plants mature.
I've also been checking in some books, and in Reppenhagen, his photo of roseoalba has flowers very much like mine, lanceolate petals,10-14mm long, 2-4mm wide, not as rounded as in SB285 and some of the others shown above. The petals are alos much more highly coloured. He also says that there is sometimes 1 central spine, near the outside of the areole. But as he described all the others as radial spines, (4-6), it could be that this is just a bit more central than the others, and are all subcentrals.
Hunt in his 1987 "New Review" shows a photo of the original Boedeker illustration, showing a plant with shorter spines than, but much more like the body shape of the Lau1170 plants shown above. He says he went to a village called Progreso, north of Victora which in name at least matched the original described location and was unsuccessful in finding M. roseoalba there, but talks about finding forms of M. heyderi nearby.
Interesting information, but hardly conclusive, and as ever I start to wonder how much of what we buy as named seed is right, and hope to get some more recently acquired seed, to eliminate the chances of cross pollination in cultivation. It also makes me wonder about the degree of variability of this species in habitat and whether, as it is close to magnimamma, there are intermediate forms and this is what is confusing matters.
Being armchair detectives isn't easy!!

I do not really know where to place M. roseoalba. Around the type region near Ciudad Victoria one can find M. heyderi like plants and plants that seem to have affinity to M. magnimamma. In my opinion, Lau 1170 and ML 463 (and probably some of the Rog numbers) are the best contenders for acquiring M. roseoalba status.
The plant from the Plapp nursery has nothing to do with M. roseoalba, it seems to be close to M. formosa.
M. sp. SB 285 is a heyderi form. It comes from north of Dr. Arroyo where it grows in mud flats (together with Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus). Dr. Arroyo is located west of the Sierra Madre Oriental, far away from the type location of M. roseoalba, which lies just east of this huge mountain range.

Wolter ten Hoeve.

...

Out of interest Reppenhagen made six collections of M.roseoalba, Repp 389, 713, 1010, 1013, 1279, 1432a.
Repp 1279 is shown on page 445 of the New Cactus Lexion.
Does anyone still grow any of these field numbers in their collection.

Tam.

I also have a M. roseoalba L.1170 bought at ELK 2008 by Kakteen Uhlig and seedlings of roseoalbe Rog. 589 from the Mam. Society sown this year

Bart

Thanks Bart and Wolter,
As ever, trying to get clear identity of plants is difficult.
I have seen enough, though, to keep my label as it is on my plant whose photo started this thread. I should have looked at the SB285 location, I am annoyed with myself as it is very rare to find species which have major geographical features dividing their distribution.
Now to find some of the more recent collections....

Wolter ten Hoeve has asked me to add the following:

Not far from the Rog 589 and 590 location I found plants which I think should also be qualified as M. roseoalba (WTH 568). I do not know what the flowers are like. These plants grow at an altitude of 1000 meters, whereas Rog 589 and 590 grow at 1400 to 1500 meters.
WTH 568 grows about 2 km south and 3 km north of Rog 589 and it grows 3 km south and a little less than 2 km north of Rog 590.
So, WTH 568, Rog 589 and Rog 590 grow quite close to each other and they are all probably closely related. They grow in a rather mountainous region.
At a distance of about 15 km almost straight to the west, not far from San Antonio, I found a plant (WTH 565) which I qualify as M. heyderi. It grows in a more flattish area with some hills.
The main problem with M. roseoalba is that the original description is not so very clear. To quote Pilbeam in his 'Mammillaria, a Collector's Guide': "This name is attached to various different-looking plants, so that it should be viewed with suspicion at all times". And in 'Mammillaria' he writes: "The identity of this relatively unknown and often misidentified species has remained in question for some years".


WTH 568, south of Ciudad Victoria,


WTH 565, west of San Antonio

I was doing some investigation on the web today and came across a reserach article which said that a new betacyanin compiund had been discovered, which existed in the fruits of 9 Mammillarias. These were: M. roseo-alba (Boedecker), M. donatii (Berge), M. coronata (Scheidweiler), M. karwinskiana (Martius), M. gummifera (Engelmann), M. infernillensis (Craig), M. centricirrha (Lemaire), M. krameri (Muehlenpfordt), and M. magnimamma (Haworth).

What I found interesting was that of these spepcies, apart from M. karwinskiana and M. donatii, all the others could be considered as variants of either M. magnimamma or M. heyderi. I have no idea of what M. coronata is, so I have discarded it, but from Hunt via Craig, it could, at quite a stretch of imagination, be a plant from Real del Monte, Hidalgo, which probably is a form of M. magnimamma imho.

I don't have access (free!) to the full article so I don't know how extensive their sampling of other Mammillaria species was, especially those within the Magnimamma Group.
If anyone else knows more, it would be interesting to see. And if anyone has subscription access and can download the pdf, I'd love a copy!!

I have just noticed that on the Meas Gardens seed list is M.roseoabla SB 039 from Huizache, SLP, growing mud. Without seeing the plant it sounds like it could be M.heyderi again. Has anyone grown this collection and could comment.

Hi Tam,
I found this today http://www.cactus-roma.com/lista_2008_SRB.xls and this lists roseoalba Rep 1010.
Maybe our Italian members can tell us more about this place?
Repp 1013 is multiceps, at least according to the AfM field list.
But I can find no trace of the other numbers.

Update: The list is actually that of Il Sole Rarita Botaniche, from whom I have bought plants before - small but well grown, and good value.

to day i sent two e.mail to mr.zanovello and to cactus roma for receiving photographic material.
i'm waiting.

Oh yes, that helps
At this rate we'll have to scrap roseoalba altogteher and it'll become heyderi ssp. rosalbiflora .

Has the seed analysis been done yet? It would be interesting to see what came from that. I don't have any heyderi seeds at the moment, so I am unable to even take a quick look, not that I'd necessarily know what I'd be looking for.

I am sorry, there were no fruits or seeds on the plant (only 1 plant found). Perhaps I will find more plants and fruits during my next visit. It is certainly my intention to visit the La Siberia - La Encantada region once again (perhaps this fall?) and to spend more time there than during my visit in the spring of 2009. The area is difficultly accessible, however. In the spring of 2009 we started in Aramberri, then drove to Zaragoza and from there uphill towards La Encantada. From Zaragoza to La Encantada is certainly not easy, but well doable. The stretch La Encantada - La Siberia is almost impossible to drive. We had a fairly high clearance van, but walking went faster than driving! Compared to that stretch, going from La Siberia towards Dr. Arroyo is comparatively easy. Perhaps, in the future I will write an article about that adventurous trip in the J. Mamm. Soc....

As Chris already pointend out in a previous post, David Hunt discussed M. roseoalba in 'A new review of Mammillaria names'. Boedeker reported it to come from Victoria, Progreso. At a village with that name, Hunt found a form of M. heyderi. Could that actually have been M. roseoalba? Looking at the Boedeker photo, reproduced by Hunt in 'A new review of Mammillaria names', the plant in that photo certainly seems to have heyderi character in it. So the unsolved question still remains: Is M. roseoalba a form of M. heyderi or is it a form of M. magnimamma?

Wolter.

Yes, please for the article in the J. Mamm Soc..!

As you pointed out in a previous post, the mountains that separate Tamaulipas and SLP are quite significant. However, M. heyderi is such a widespread species in all its various forms that mountains can't be considered an insurmountable obstacle to its spread.

Just a couple of things to add.

I have been in correspondance with Dr David Hunt, who says that the form that most closely represents the original description is M. roseoalba Rep 1279. This is shown in the New Cactus Lexicon, and is a photo that he took at W. Reppenhagen's collection in St. Veit. This is the same plant as referred to earlier as potentially being called M. melispina, presumably until that meeting in Austria.

Does anyone grow this form? Does anyne know whether the Reppenhagen nursery is still operating. I have sent several emails, all without response. The last list on their web site is 2007 and doesn't list Rep 1279, but does list two other forms Rep 713 and Rep 1010.

Ja, die Gärtnerei REPPENHAGEN in St.Veit an der Glahn besteht noch - unter Rudi KNES.
LG Andrej

Just today, I noticed that I have been at the roseoalba ML 463 location in 2002. I did make a few slides of the roseoalbas there (WTH 202) and here are the scanned slides of the habitat plants (sorry, it is not a high-quality slide scanner). They are much less dehydrated than the plant of the ML 463 image, but that is because I visited the ML 463 location in the fall, at the end of the rainy season.

Wolter.

This thread has been quiet for a while, but in the meantime, Wolter ten Hoeve and myself have continued a discussion. This resulted in Wolter contacting a "friend of a friend" with theresponse which I include below, along with some photographs.

=================

I have been working and researching in the "Mammillarias" of Tamaulipas and Northeast Mexico since 1995, in the past 15 years I have found many interesting plants and haved almost the same questions as you ask to me now.

Particularly some years ago I haved this exactly talk about the exact location of Progreso with David Hunt and about the realy identitiy of M. roseoalba Bod., this was about 2002-2003..I do not remember exactly the date. My believe since that time is that M. roseoalba only comes from Jaumave Valley, I show Hunt the same photos and plants with flowers you will see from 2002 from Nogales, he agreed that´s needed more research on need to be located the type locality of the plants before any more conjetures. But the original photo of Bodeker (showed by Hunt in his Mammillaria Review extracted from original description) is inequivocally the right one.

I have been looking around for old maps and mine´s maps since then without success.

Anyway, it do not matter so much, as the plants of the real M. roseoalba sended to Bodeker by De Laet 1928 could be collected anywhere in the old route to Mexico City to Victoria, south of Ciudad Victoria. Particularly I though that it comes from the Jaumave Valley, as Progreso is a common old name and could be a ranch, small village or even a small hill, so..this need to be researched with more time and resources with old people from Jaumave area and historic maps of the region (at that time very early post-revolution).

I have looked around the forum of Mammillaria and I can tell you some statments about the plants showed in pictures:

WTH 568, ROG 589, REP 1279 from S. and W Ciudad Victoria: according with the old descriptions provided by D. Hunt (1988) could be positively identified as "Mammillaria sororia Meinshausen (1859)", with the next original description:

M. sororia Meinshausen, 1859: Stem gray-green, tubercles large, broadly compressed-conic, polyhedral, rounded-flattened above, keeled below, ca. 12 mm overall (so then not very large as stated), areoles wooly at first, later naked; axils naked. Central spine 1, ascending, stouter and grayer than radials, radial spines 6, upper shorter (2-4 mm), lower 8-10 mm, whitish or flesh coloured (pale rose) with black base an tip. Flowers: large, whitish, outer segments greenish with whitish margins and purple tip, inner segments white with greenish purple midstripe, stigmas 4. Loc. typ.: Jaumave and Santa Barbara.

My observations of M. sororia in habitat: The spines vary less in number (from 5 to 7 at much, but always with a porrect subcentral spine), I found plants at several locations near Victoria, (never near Jaumave or within the Valley) with mixed characteristics but all have the same general appareance in the tubercles shape and colour. An equal identification of plants to original description I found in Peregrina Canyon, W. Ciudad Victoria, some years ago, flowering from naked axils, but several plants developed wooll in same populations, so it´s an incomplete data from description. The flower color varies from withish yellow in a plant seen at 1500 m high, and rose-pink to deep pink in others to plants from lower elevations (350-1450 m). I do not found the flowers very big in size as stated, most only reach 1.5-2 cm long at much, but all have the next shared characteristic: few segments of perianth, so the flower look always "open".

I found plants identified positively as "M. sororia" variations only close to Victoria in the Mountians from 350 to 1500 m altitude. Here too the quite variable plants of Reppenhaggen, Lau and Hunt.

The WTH 565 = M. heyderi ssp. meiacantha or heyderi from Jaumave Valley, I collected them too close to Rio Chihue and other locations.

The Mammillaria sp. from La Siberia, Nuevo León (spring 2009) is a very interesting plant we could search in field this year if you are interested, I have seen some look like plants in Miquihuana since some years ago which I am studying from the "Mammillaria melanocentra complex" in Northeast Mexico, and this plant could be very interesting as seems to link with the northernmost populations.

The Lau 1170 plants definitively do not belong to M. roseoalba, in fact it´s a new subspecies of Mammillaria winterae I am describing and working on it´s cladystic since some years ago and probably (hopefully) this year I will publish it. This plant is endemic to the canyons in the West and South of Ciudad Victoria only and more restricted in it´s habitat and altitude, and also more scarce. In his Field Numbers, Lau only states that it comes from W. Ciudad Victoria, probably from Novillo Canyon, a favourite place for his collectings and place where it´s located this plant too. This is also the route to climb to La Reja Ranch (M. carmenae) and type locality of M. laui & subspecies and M. (melanocentra) rubrograndis.

Lau in fact do not explored the new highway to Jaumave very much (now old one because of the recent construction of a new one in the bottom of canyon), in this area are found M. macracantha (M. magnimamma), M. sororia and probably a new subspecies of M. melanocentra very restricted to an oak shrubland above 1500 m, close to M. melanocentra rubrograndis, but it´s in study yet.

Another species described from the area is M. melispina by Werdermann (1934), which I have not found in any place in Tamaulipas in my many trips, but that probably could be a synonym of the real M. roseoalba of Bodeker according to the flower colour and lenght of spines, unfortunatelly the very brief description of this plant do not allow to more conjetures:

Mammillaria melispina Werd., Tubercles triangular or quadrangular, 1x1 cm, glaucescent, axiles wooly at first, later naked, Spines 2-4,porrect, 8-12 mm, clear yellow at first. Flower 3 cm, pale greenish yellow. Type locality: Jaumave.

This last description coincides in part with the description of M. roseoalba of Bodeker.

So the real plants of M. roseoalba can be distinguished by the next characteristics:

M. roseoalba Bödeker (1929), Spines 4-6, 8-10 mm long, spreading regularly, recurved, whitish with pink bases. Flower 3 cm long, outer segments: brownish-pink, inner segments: whitish (to pinkish), Type locality: Progreso, Near Victoria.

I have found this species endemic to Jaumave Valley only, from San Vicente, Nogales, San José de Salamanca, to the north and to the south to Matías García and intermediate locations in the East and South sides of the Valley only.

Hope this information could help in some ways to your anwsers, I could be very interested in your help too about the interesting Mammillaria coming from La Siberia and also about the exact location of Mammillaria linaresensis if you know it, for end the field research in this places and conclude my research on the group. Seeds could be of my very interest too of this 2 species.

By the way, I read that you plan to come here this year, please let me know if we could make some trips together.

Warm regards,

Leccinum (Lex) J. García Morales
Herbario,
Instituto Tecnológico de Ciudad Victoria
Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas,
México

The original Boedeker photograph, reproduced from Bradley.


M. sororia Canon de Novillo 110303


M. sororia Las Mulas 240202


M. sororia Peregrina 060201


M. roseoalba San Vicente 070309


M. roseoalba Nogales 180402


M. roseoalba Nogales 180402

It would seem from the above that Lex Morales believes that there are 2 speices, M.sororia and M.roseoalba, growing in the same general area, M.sororia to the north and roseoalba to the south. I suppose that we have to defer to his experience but it would seem to me that we have a single, variable species. I would say that roseoalba is just a redescripation of sororia and I would also place M.melispina here has well.
I am not totally convinced about L 1170 being a sub-species of M.Winterea. From my arm chair it seems more likely to be a long spined from of melanocentra rubrograndis, which is reported from the Novillo Canyon or a hybrid between this and magnimamma.

I not sure agree with you as far as M. sororia and M. roseoalba are concerned, as the flowers are really rather different and the central spines somewaht as well. Though if this were true, then we'd have to stop calling anything roseoalba as sororia precedes it - assuming all the other conditions for publishing as a good name were met!

Ill hold fire until there are more details on Lau 1170, but again the flowers of Lau 1170 and rubrograndis are significantly different, but also different to M. winterae.