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Mitigating Spines. Hechtia epigyna Harms, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

In 1934 the German botanist Hans Wilhelm Viereck (1903-1946) wrote a short essay in Kakteenkunde on how he became a cactus collector in Mexico. At length he waxes eloquent on the spiny and prickly nature of Mexican plants wherever you tread. Indeed this Hechtia which he collected near Jaumave on March 2, 1930 is a spiny and sharp-edged plant but its small flowers are quite pretty.

It was first described by another German, Hermann August Theodor Harms (1870-1942) in 1935.

Curiously, the internet has very few and not very clear fotos of our Hechtia's spiked flowers, small as they are. I hope this picture will be a small remedy.

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Uploaded on March 1, 2022
Taken on March 1, 2022