From Nuevo Leon and Coahuila Mexico, Mammillaria plumosa is one of the most wonderfully spined cacti there is. The plant is completely covered in tiny feathery plumes. It's a heavy clumper as you can see by the lower pictures. That pot for the one at Bachs is 2 feet across! The individual heads are reported to get to 2 inches around, but the one above, one of two in my collection, has a center head at least three inches across. And in the pictures I've seen even the flowers are pretty. They're white with a pale pink stripe and supposedly are sweet scented.
     I never saw one of these up close before. I fell in love with it immediately! I took a few offsets and repotted the one below. They rooted without a problem. Now to wait for flowers.
     Update October 22nd, 2006. I never even noticed the buds but 3 flowers appeared today on one of the two. I looked closely at it and then I could see the buds hidden inder the spination, it's loaded with them! More pictures soon once I get a bunch of them open at once. I have to admit to some dissapointment though, I had hoped the midstripe would be more prominent.

Closeup of spination	A nice one at Bachs	First flowers	A closer view
A whole bunch 2 days later