Dmitry Samogorodsky, Kremenchug, Ukraine

I received Ariocarpus fissuratus seeds in 1999 from Vlasenko Gennady (Vinnitsa, Ukraine). The seeds were sown and when they grew to 1mm, to be on the safe side, I grafted some of them on Pereskiopsis. Seedlings were developing as usual. The grafted ones grew faster and were coloured a bit differently. When the grafted plants grew to 7-8 mm, I noticed that one of them was bright red. By the way that was the weakest seedling, which I thought would not survive. I am not an admirer of cultivars, having a preference for natural forms, but I got interested in this case.

I regrafted the seedling onto a better stock of Ritterocereus pruinosus. I was amazed when some weeks later the plant became greener (Photo 1-2). Later on it grew still greener and on the whole the colour became brownish-green. It lasted for almost 9 months, until the spring of 2003. Then the bright sun as if awakened the bright colour in the plant, at least partly.

Photo 1.

Photo 2.

Photo 3.

At a cactus exhibition in 2003 this Ariocarpus was beautiful as never before (Photo 3-5). But in two weeks it began to get greener again. It did not get as green as it was a month before, but was not so bright as it was in its heyday (Photo 6-8).

Strange, isn't it? Let us see what happens next!

Photos by the author.

Photo 6.

Photo 7.

Photo 8.