Unusual in Usual

You will certainly answer positive to the question .Do you know well your collection?. Still look closely at it. Are there unusual species, sometimes called freaks, among your plants?

фото 1.	фото 2.	фото 3.

фото 6.

These can include plants having an unusual exterior (photo 1 . Hands up - Cylindropuntia subulata)), form (photo 2 - Big-nosed shorty - Astrophytum myriostigma var. tulense), blooming (photos 4-5) or shoots (photo 3 . Individualist - Opuntia sp.) and so on. If you find any in your collection send photos to this rubric.

PS Try to invent names for these two cacti (photos 6- Echinopsis hybr, 7- Trichocereus bridgesii ssp. inermis) yourselves. Please, do not use improper words :-)

Plants on photos 1-2 belong to I.Kataeva, Chelyabinsk, (photos by the owner), photos 4-5 . A.Tselovalnikova, Chelyabinsk, photo 7 . V.Mourashev, Chelyabinsk, photos 3,6 . V.Kalishev (photos by the owner).

Aylostera heliosa. It is grown out of the seeds sawn in February 1995. In 1998 as it grew slowly it was implanted into Trichocereus.

After some time the new outspring began to grow quickly and a lengthwise groove appeared on it. It looked like the plant began to split. In April 2000 A.A.Tselovalnikova, the owner reimplanted the upper part to Cereus.

A month after that this part bloomed. But instead of flowers it had pistils along the groove (photos 4-5). The flowering went on for almost three months during which old pistils went and new ones appeared.

This is a mutation. The question is if it is somatic (taking place in the body cell) or genetic. It's hard to say. Pay attention that a number of Japanese cultivars

Astrophytum asterias have petals (corona) that are almost fully changed (reduced). This is a genetic mutation. But their flowers have pistil and stamens. The described Aulostera heliosa can be diclinous. Apparently it has a genetic mutation or rather a group of mutations as the changes are numerous.

Walery Kalishev, Chelyabinsk, Russia, mailto: e-mail