Note that I posted this last week with 0 images that showed that I’m talking about. Ahem. A note on ID’ing plants because the more I know, the bigger my imagination and mental database becomes, and I often overthink. I see what I want to see. Because they are (for me, for the experts in forums) wicked hard to pick out of a line-up with other species in the genus - and other genera - I tend to confuse Copiapoa with a couple plants, the Mammillaria compressa in particular. It’s a cool cactus, but not Copiapoa… I THINK. I’m still not 100% this is M compressa until it gets more color and grows a bit, but this is the super subtle tip-off so far. That squiggly areole. (I like thinking about how, for example, seeds from Mexico made it to Chile and what popped out evolved just slightly enough to accommodate the new climate.) Also, my tips for ID: figure out more or less the genus, search Etsy. If I don’t know the exact species yet, I go to places such as Mountain Crest Gardens and Planet Desert for more info. I love Llifle dot com, but the thumbnails of cactus often show a mature, flowering plant or a 50-year old columnar. That site is amazing if you’re looking to identify your Lithops, though. Examples of Copiapoa provided for reference lol.
