Mammillaria bocasana

Mammillaria bocasana cultivars can be found in many forms. Some of them are so bizarre that it takes some persuasion to believe that they are bocasana at all.


This picture shows a double headed normal M. bocasana. It produces yellowish-white flowers and long thin pink fruits.










This picture shows M. bocasana v. splendens cristata. The plant resembles M. plumosa.








M. bocasana 'Fred' is a monstrose form of the species. There are several stories circulating of how Fred got its name:

1. It is attributed to Frank Harwood., which having had visitors asking what it is he replied ' I do not know, let us call it Frank'. This was in the early Seventies or late sixties.

2. From Ron Studior, a now out-of-business nursery in Texas, in the sixties.

3. Chuck Hanson's Arid Lands Greenhouses in Tucson, Arizona in the eighties.



Since then several other monstrose forms have appeared that are not 'Frank'. The one on the left is a typical example. It produces montrose and cristate forms on the same plant and grafted cuttings can take their own shape.