Description of Turbinicarpus hoferi

T. hoferi [Click the image for more pictures]

Photo © Mark Faint

Luethy and Lau, KuaS, 42(2): 34-35, 1991.

Plants solitary, flattened, 3-5 (- 7) cm in diameter. Sitting 5 mm above the ground. Epidermis grey green, matt, with alveolate surface and deeply sunken stomata, covered with a thick wax layer, which decays in irregular flat to scale-like structures. The hypodermis is multi-layered, where the cell walls are less thickened than in other species of Turbinicarpus (Anderson 1986). Root formed from underground part of the body, weakly branched, tuberous. Body with ribs, these divided into low, to 4 mm high, tubercles. Tubercles with wide-rhombic base, 4-10 mm x 4-7 mm. Lower lateral surfaces concave, upper convex. Upper and side edges of the tubercles greatly keeled. Areoles on the tip of the tubercle, about 1 mm in diameter, at the plants apex with white felt, later becoming bare. Spines dimorphic, in juvenile plants 6-13, white, pectinate, 2 (- 3) mm long. In adult plants 4-7 spines, needle-like (not corky), grey, partly with somewhat darker tip. Of these 2-4 straight directed down and to the sides, 3-5 mm long, the remaining more or less pointing up, straight to slightly curved, flattened and slightly spirally wound, to 2 cm long. Surface of the spines rough, with lengthways and horizontal bark-like, net-shaped structures. Flowers from the apex, funnel-shaped, to 25 mm long and 15-20 mm in diameter. Pericarpel pale light-green, bare, elliptical, 3 mm long, 2 mm in diameter. Receptacle 3 mm long, 2 mm at the base, 4 mm in diameter at the distal end, light brownish-red. 2-3 outer perianth segments (bracts), lanceolate, brownish-red with light edges. Outer perianth segments (outer tepals) 10 mm long, 3-4 mm broad, narrow lanceolate, pointed, insides white to cream-white with pink-carmine coloured mid-strip, outside brownish-red with light edges. Inner perianth segments (internal tepals) lanceolate, often jagged tipped, presumably through adhesion to adjacent segments, white, 12 mm long, 3-6 mm broad. Altogether about 12-16 perianth segments. Stamens 60-80, in 4-6 series, filaments white, anthers light yellow. Style 8 mm long, white, standing above the anthers. Stigma white, with 5, not spreading, lobes, 1 mm long. Fruit greenish, later with brownish lengthways streaks and drying our, 5-7 mm long and 3.5-4 mm in diameter, containing ca. 50 seeds, splitting open at the side, as in the other species of the genus Turbinicarpus. Short, flowering period. Presumably obligatorily cross-pollinates. The flower similar to that of Turbinicarpus lophophoroides, considerably smaller however. Seeds more or less 0.9 mm long, cap shaped, 0.7 mm broad, 0.5 mm thick. Testa matt dark brown, almost black, colliculate, the distal end with greatly arched cells, from there to the Hilum area almost completely flattened. Heavy cuticular folding pattern over the whole cell. Hilum area more or less oval, sunken. Embryo oval.

Locality: Aramberi, Nuevo León, México.

Related taxa

Turbinicarpus hoferi is part of the lophophoroides aggregate of taxa, together with the following:

References

Turbinicarpus hoferi Luethy and Lau, Eine neue Art aus Nuevo León Mexiko, KuaS, 42(2): 34-37, 1991.
Turbinicarpus hoferi Luethy and Lau, Eine neue Art aus Nuevo León Mexiko, KuaS, 42(3): 62-65, 1991.

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