Schlumbergera

Who has never seen the Christams cactus before , we all know that they love water but look at how many peoples grow them .
Apparently if grown in water they are growing faster .



also find out that there are some nice rarity like

schlumbergera opuntioides



schlumbergera microsphaerica



schlumbergera enigma



Aspen



madame butterfly

 

Very nice plants they are too Sal although I'd contest that Schlumbergera opuntioides and Schlumbergera microsphaerica are natural corsses as far as I am aware they are both species found in the wild of Brazil, I'm getting some cuttings of S. opuntioides sometime this summer as well

 

Yup, i agree with Aesculus. Both are good species.
I doubt a Schlumbergera would be able to cross with an Opuntia. They are at opposite ends of the cactus family tree.

 

Yes they are both species , but personally (I`m not a botanic) it look to obvious that it`s natural crossed with opuntia , seen on a russian website even a cross with an Epiphyllum , maybe is just an easy cross plant .

 

Is that the cross in the photo Sal? as that's a photo of Hatiora rosea... Schlumbergera opuntioides is not a cross with Opuntia, both plants are in completely separate sub genera and a natural hybrid or even a man made hybrid by means of sexual reproduction would be an impossibility! part of the classification of plants is finding out if they can be hybridised together and if they can then that usually means they are somewhat related to each other bi-generic hybrids are rare even in closer related plants, rarer still in nature

 

the clue is in the name - opuntioides = resembling an opuntia.

 

Aesculus , I think you are right , it doesn`t say anywhere that it `s an Hybrid , even if it look like one , I was reading that opuntia is one of the best and easy plant for Hybrid thare are many natural hybrid in nature .
Don`t tell me that actually the Hatiora is nothing more then an hybrid? or I just didn`t read properly?.

 

No Hatiora rosea is a naturally occurring species

as for epiphyllum's they're a bit complicated as what we call "epiphyllum hybrids" are in fact usually nothing of the sort they are actually Disocactus hybrids although nowadays a number of modern hybridisers such as Helmut Paetzold and Rudolf hessing to name a couple are experimenting with great success using Epiphyllum species such as Epiphyllum anguliger (pictured below) in the crosses usually involving other cultivars or Disocactus species there are well over 10,000 recorded hybrids now! plants which are reputed to have been used in epiphyllum cultivars include Disocactus (which includes the now lumped genera: Heliocereus, Wittia, Aporocactus, Nopalxochia, Chipasia) Epiphyllum, Selenicereus and some believe Echinopsis aurea in the case of some yellow cultivars although Curt Knebel the famed German hybridiser disputes this in his book "Phyllokakteen"

Photo: Emma Lindahl Wikipedia​

 

WOW that`s something interesting , do you actually know any strange cross between any of the species????
another thing did you ever seen a craft trick of growing Schlumbergera or epy on big cactus like opuntia just to speed them up?????

In Italy I`ve seen this trick used a lot .

 

I haven't seen grafted plants like you mention in person but I have read about them in 19th century books it was very popular at that time in the UK to graft Schlumbergera on Pereskia or similar to have a tall pyramid of flowering branches here's a line drawing of an example taken from Cactus Culture for Amateurs by W. Watson




The whole book is available free online (well out of copyright) from project guttenberg and is well worth a read http://www.gutenberg.org/files/13357/13357-h/13357-h.htm#eruss one thing to bear in mind is that it refers to "Epiphyllum" this is not the modern Epiphyllum that we know but actually what we call Schlumbergera Epiphyllum in that book go by the name Phyllocactus very confusing I know epiphyllum was originally the name given to schlumbegera however this was changed later.

In america it is common place for nurserys to field grow grafted Epiphyllum on Opuntia however one drawback which you do see occasionally is diseased plants (usually tomato mosaic virus which causes breaks in the flower colour) as the roots of the Opuntia will join together underground and share nutrients but unfortunately also pass on virus, if one plant gets infected then they all do!

 

and on the subject of strange hybrid epiphytic cacti I submit this monster it is called a Chimera or more acuruatley a "graft hybrid" it's an incredibly rare occurrence where the cutting and root stock actually produce growth with mixed charachteristics taken from both plants

this is an example of a Hylocereus and Gymnocalycium mihanovichii variegata graft hybrid

photos where pinched from this ebay auction: http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/benji_lew?_trksid=p2047675.l2559

 

Thought this might be of interest, its two colours of Epi, grafted onto an opuntia, not sure what the opuntia was as I grew it from a packet of mixed seed, but it was one of the more tree like fast growing ones.
The Epis were also grown from seed, this was taken back in 1990, so its a scan, the plants have long gone now, but grafting onto opuntias is relatively easy.

 

Beautiful Pete

 

Pete , that`s another of your treasure kept hidden from us ,

you make me feel like I`m 20 years behind you , any tip for us ?????

Do plans will grown faster if crafted on opuntia????

 

As pete hasn't replied sal73 I thought I would take a stab at your question

Most of the time especially in cacti grafting a plant seems to mature the scion more quickly and in the case of epiphyllums and Schlumbergera earlier flowering, I have read fairly recently (I can't remember where...) that epiphyllum hybrid seedlings can be forced to produce adult leaves quicker by grafting them at the seedling stage onto something like Pereskiopsis or another epiphyllum and then once they have produced a nice adult leaf they can be cut off and rooted just like a normal cutting.