That particular Rhipsalis makes small whitish berries with no flavor. The fruit in the pot in the pic are from the Melo. (There's one still hanging on the top.) The hairs on the cephalium are so tight that as the fruit grows, it is forced up and out. The fruit are hollow and tasteless, and few seeds are inside. Rhipsalis species. The large stems are one species, the gold flowers belong Hatiora (Rhipsalis) salicornioides, and the white flowers and small green stems are the third species that co-habit with the Melocactus. I've had houseplants since I was a kid. Some followed me around the country for 10 years, but the majority became succulents in the mid 90s. With the internet came the opportunity to find formerly obscure things like cactus seeds and people who were growing more than they could want. The 2 things go hand in hand. I still have many plants that are 20 years old, including an Espostoa guentheri that is now about 9ft. tall and reaching the roof of the greenhouse. Anybody want to come get it?

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

Could be Mammillaria magnimamma or karwinskiana. It's quite like a couple I've got labelled karwinskiana.