hmmmm how about mammillaria krameri? i did a search of m Mammillaria magnimamma and saw a pic of krameri i tinhk looks a bit more like this one guess if it blooms that will help . I once had a cacti similar to this one and i havent seen it since it was an odd blue green color had shorter spines and the tubercles were more compact wish i could find even just a picture of it so someone could name it and i could buy one again LoL thanks for the help. Found some pics of the Parodia werneri/Notocactus uebelmanniaus as well can't wait for it to bloom now thanks again

That is a great example of microclimates JoJo! The time spent at the minimum temperature (minutes, hours, days) plays a big role in what temperatures a plant can survive. So does the amount of water in the plant, and in the soil. Dry plants are much more tolerant of cold compared to wet plants. Plants in the ground can survive colder temperatures than plants in pots. I have found most of my plants can tolerate much lower temperatures than typically listed. These lows are brief, just a few hours at most, and it's at least 20 degrees warmer during the day. So plants that are supposed to not go below the mid-thirties F can tolerate minimum temperatures in the high twenties. Agave ferdinand-regis is listed at both +5, and -12 in the list above. The difference between a minimum average temperature, absolute minimum temperature, and Fahrenheit and Celsius scales is often confused. Minimum temperature listings should be regarded with great suspicion, even when coming from a more or less credible source like Desert-Tropicals. It is better to research the plants natural environmental conditions. I would not give much credence to this, or any other so called 'minimum temperature' list. There are too many variables for these to be accurate to any degree. ;) Brad

Sorry Dawn, we had lost of visitors coming and going yesterday, so I kept losing the thread of what I was doing as I tried to check my books etc to try to find an ID for this plant... so by the time I posted my reply, I'd left a few things unsaid as I continued to ponder the possibilities. You are right, magnimamma and all it's forms usually have a downward pointing central, this is the thing that has me puzzled. There are a number of other species that I've been looking at that have an upward pointing centrals, and dark spines such as... brandegeei, fera-rubra(forms), johnstonii(sancarlensis) etc., but these all have other features that yours does not have, such radial spines and lack of wool in the axils. The spines on yours are all subcentral and there are no radials which is a feature of magnimamma, magnimamma also can produce lots of wool when it is young, and tends to lose this when it is older. Some of the older spines at the base of you plant are much stronger and longer than the spines on the top of the plant, which would indicate to me that it was grown a lot harder when it was young... it will be interesting to see how they change after a couple of seasons in your collection. So I'm no closer to solving it apart from the distinct possibility of hybridisation. CP

Those are gorgeous,tell your wife she did a good job.TFS Kathi