"paghat" wrote in message
...
The bright red and bright yellow, orange, black, white, variegated,
striped or blotched barrel cacti (most commonly Gymnocalycium
mihanovichii) have no chlorophyll production of their own and HAVE to be
grafted onto a green cactus to live parasitically. The host is usuall
Hylocereus trigonus.


That's very interesting. I see how such a plant can be propagated but how
did it originate?

CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild
Fauna and Flora) say that:

"The first known colour mutant of a cactus was found in 1941 in Japan. It
was a red coloured seedling plant of Gymnocalycium mihanovichii without
chlorophyll (the pigment that gives the green colour to plants). It was kept
alive by grafting, as it would not have been able to survive otherwise."

This sounds strange. How did it even get to be a seedling? Was it saved
while still growing on the stored energy of the seed? I don't know much
about cactus but I would think you would have to be dead lucky. Perhaps it
wasn't a seedling but a bud sport and somebody spotted it and started
grafting.

David