Coryphantha cubensis Britton and Rose, Torreya 12 : 15, 1912
Description:
Coryphantha cubensis   Britton and Rose
Plants depressed-globose, tufted, 2 to 3 cm. broad, pale green; tubercles numerous, vertically compressed,
6 to 7 mm. long, 4 to 5 mm. wide, about 3 mm. thick, grooved on upper side from apex to below middle,
the groove very distinct; spines about 10, whitish, radiating, acicular but weak, 3 to 4 mm. long, those
of young tubercles subtended by a tuft of silvery white hairs, 1,5 mm. long; flowers pale yellowish green,
16 mm. high, the segments acute; filaments, style, and stigma-lobes yellowish; fruit red, less than 1 cm.
long, naked; seeds black, somewhat angled.
Type locality: Among stones in barren savanna, southeast of Holguin, Oriente, Cuba.
Distribution: Type locality and vicinity.
This species is very inconspicuous and perhaps for that reason is rare in collections. It has only twice,
to our knowledge, been collected, both times by Dr. J. A. Shafer, once in 1909 (No. 2946) and again in 1912
(No. 12432), who gave a short account of its discovery in the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden (No. 155).
He states that it barely protrudes through the layer of broken stones that filled the interstices between
the larger rocks; that the largest plants were scarcely an inch in diameter, one of them bearing a small
yellowish flower. It lives only a short time in greenhouse cultivation.
Coryphantha cubensis Britton and Rose, The Cactaceae, 4: 48, 1923
Description:
36. Coryphantha cubensis   Britton and Rose
Coryphantha cubensis Britton and Rose, Torreya 12 : 15, 1912
Mammillaria urbaniana Vaupel, Monatsschr. Kakteenk., 22 : 65, 1912
Plants depressed-globose, tufted, 2 to 3 cm. broad, pale green; tubercles numerous, vertically compressed,
6 to 7 mm. long, 4 to 5 mm. wide, about 3 mm. thick, grooved on upper side from apex to below middle,
the groove very distinct; spines about 10, whitish, radiating, acicular but weak, 3 to 4 mm. long, those
of young tubercles subtended by a tuft of silvery white hairs, 1,5 mm. long; flowers pale yellowish green,
16 mm. high, the segments acute; filaments, style, and stigma-lobes yellowish; fruit red, less than 1 cm.
long, naked; seeds black, somewhat angled.
Type locality: Among stones in barren savanna, southeast of Holguin, Oriente, Cuba.
Distribution: Type locality and vicinity.
This species is very inconspicuous and perhaps for that reason is rare in collections. It has only twice,
to our knowledge, been collected, both times by Dr. J. A. Shafer, once in 1909 (No. 2946) and again in 1912
(No. 12432), who gave a short account of its discovery in the Journal of the New York Botanical Garden (No. 155).
He states that it barely protrudes through the layer of broken stones that filled the interstices between
the larger rocks; that the largest plants were scarcely an inch in diameter, one of them bearing a small
yellowish flower. It lives only a short time in greenhouse cultivation.
On account of the name Mammillaria cubensis Zuccarini (Labouret, Monogr. Cact. 59. 1853) Vaupel gave
a new specific name to the plant when he transferred it from Coryphantha.
Plate V, figure 1, shows the plant collected by Dr. Shafer in 1912 which flowered in the New York Botanical
Garden in July of the same year; figure 1a shows the fruit and figure 1b shows a tubercle from the same plant.
© 2002-2006 Jan Mynar
Last modified January 7, 2006