A Prickly Composition

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:18 pm

Three sticky photos for you. My boss picked up this cactus for me when he was out in Tucson AZ. USA a couple of weeks ago. This is Echinocereus viridiflorus (nylon hedgehog cactus). It is supposed to be very winter hardy (Zone 5). Photos are just a study in spikiness and I converted one to B&W, has some nice contrast IMO.

MacroLuv · Post by **MacroLuv** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:26 pm

Very nice and pleasant looking cactus Doug.

If you do not sit on it of course.

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 12:44 pm

I have seen plastic cacti Doug but I don't know what is supposed to be nylon about this one! Where do they get these common names from?

"viridiflorus" refers to the flowers which are greenish in some forms.

Nice pictures. I have some coming along from seed and they are fairly cold tolerant.

We had a commercial firm dreaming up "consumer names" for cacti in the UK like "Mexican Firecracker", which proved their ignorance however because the plant they stuck that name on was South American!

DaveW

Bruce Williams · Post by **Bruce Williams** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 1:48 pm

Beautiful composition Doug!

You know I'd never have thought it would work as a B&W study - but it really does. The lack of colour accentuates light and form (all important in this case) and the result is very, very different - strong visual impact!

Excellent work.

Bruce

ps. Just a thought Doug - Pic2 might look good developed into a slightly longer and thiner frame with 3 sets of spines included - bit like vertical set of traffic lights. What do you think?

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 6:10 pm

Thanks for the great comments guys.

Dave..funny thing, if you search on yahoo with the scientific name, almost the first five links list it as the nylon hedgehog cactus, like this one http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=ECVI2 but the picture does not show the green flowers, whats a novice to do

.

Bruce, I see your artistic point on the three spines, I will give it a shot tomorrow. Thinking about it, I do believe it will look a lot better than this composition on picture #2.

cactuspic · Post by **cactuspic** » Mon Feb 19, 2007 10:01 pm

Good images Doug. I am glad to see your boss chose well.

Irwin

beetleman · Post by **beetleman** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 1:43 pm

Here is a pic of three groups of spines in a row for Bruce per his suggestion.

About a 50% crop. Would be nicer if it didn`t have those hard water stains on it...you should see the crust coming out of the bottom holes in the pot

Bruce Williams · Post by **Bruce Williams** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:11 pm

Thanks for giving it a shot Doug.

I do agree that the water stains do rather detract artistically. What a shame too, especially as the dark green body is so nicely marked and would prove a much more pleasing contrast to the spines and areole.

You could try cleaning a VERY small (unobtrusive) test area with a mix of 5 parts distilled water to 1 part squeezed lemon juice followed by a wash in distilled water. Hold it upside down to avoid lemon juice running into compost (make sure it doesn't fall out of pot though) and use a small watercolour brush.

You would be best to leave it till you start watering (April?).

Or alternatively, you could just say s*d it! ...and enjoy it just as it is

Bruce

Ken Ramos · Post by **Ken Ramos** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:57 pm

Looks like as though you really "stuck it" to us with this post Doug. That thing looks painful. Nice images though.

DaveW · Post by **DaveW** » Tue Feb 20, 2007 2:58 pm

Doug,

Viridiflorus comes in a few forms with different flower colours from greenish yellow to tinged brownish. Here's a "green" one:-

http://www.highcountrygardens.com/catal ... uct/46990/

DaveW