Tephrocactus (Tephrocactus weberi var. dispar)

Tephrocactus
Tephrocactus weberi var. dispar

Tephrocactus weberi - Close-up of flower; Chandler, AZ (June 6, 2011)

Tristan, why do you call this var. deminuta? According to Rausch it should have an orange flower, while the type species has lemon-yellow to max golden-yellow flowers. According to the photo of var deminuta in Anderson's book it seems to also have purple stigma lobes (like in some of the habitat photos of Craig Howe in Cactusguide.com).

Jordi

It was given to me with that designation. If the admins want to move it, that's fine with me!

Hi Tristan,

now a real Tephrocactus weberi var deminuta is flowering in my g/h I have to insist that yours and those posted by Xenomorph are 'normal' Tephrocactus weberi and should be moved there.
Unfortunately I can't find the 'report an error' field any longer in the new design.

Jordi

Jordi,
What does Rausch say the spine color of deminuta is? Anderson says the spine color is yellow to reddish for T. weberi. He does not give a description for deminuta though. But all the images I've seen (which aren't many) on the web, the spines are white for deminuta. My specimen did not bloom so that's all I had to base my ID on (was the spines). http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/311802/

Anderson describes T. weberi flowers as yellow to orange yellow. He does not describe deminuta.

Here's my photos of the red spined regular T. weberi: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/71413/

I also should mention to Palmbob that his two images on the 'regular' page are white-spined and should be on the deminuta page. (as soon as we sort this out).

"What does Rausch say the spine color of deminuta is? Anderson says the spine color is yellow to reddish for T. weberi. He does not give a description for deminuta though."

But there is a nice and typical photo of this very slow growing -almost crippled looking- dwarf plant in his book on page 619 (at least in the German version).
Spine color is certainly not an argument for this taxon but maybe the extremely short spine length.

Jordi

Anderson does not give a description for deminuta though. But all the images I've seen (which aren't many) on the web, the spines are white for deminuta.

Does Rausch give a description of spine color for the 'regular' and/or 'deminuta'? (Or any other author)

I understand what you are trying to say about the spine length. Deminuta meaning (Small, reduced, diminutive; small sized plants). But I haven't seen a description for "White" spines. Perhaps the white spined variance is or should be designated as another thing all together since they are not yellow to reddish.