The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Mammillaria plumosa
Feather cactus is a small clustering cactus from northeastern Mexico, covered in soft white feathery spines. It is grown for its looks and needs bright light, sharp drainage and little water.
Mammillaria plumosa, the feather cactus, is a species of flowering plant in the family Cactaceae, native to Northeastern Mexico.
It grows to 12 cm (5 in) tall by 40 cm (16 in) broad. The clustering spherical stems, 7 cm (3 in) in diameter, are completely covered in white downy spines. The spines are adorned with very long hairs that are arranged like the segments of a bird's feather and protect the plant against the blistering sun of the desert. White or greenish yellow flowers are borne in late summer.
Mammillaria plumosa is one of several Mammillaria species to be cultivated. In temperate regions it must be grown under glass with heat. It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
Mammillaria bombycina · Mammillaria carmenae · Golden Star Cactus · Mammillaria erythrosperma · Twin Spine Cactus · Old Lady Pincushion · Mammillaria laui · Mexican Pincushion · Mammillaria petterssonii · Mammillaria polythele · Cactus · Texas nipple cactus
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Mammillaria plumosa by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
