8 Beautiful but Weird Mutant Cacti

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]The wonderful thing about Newton cacti is that they span everything from the wonderfully beautiful and geometric all the way to the hideous grotesque rubbery gremlins of the plant world and everything in between. It's been a very long time since arodine has focused exclusively on mutant plants and I thought you know what let's rectify that. Let's go on a big deep dive into the joyful world of the mutants.

[00:00:32]Now, about 2 years ago, one of my earliest videos on this channel was dedicated to the mutants. What we call monstrous cacti, which is essentially a aberration of form, when a plant grows unlike all of its peers, doesn't look like normal. something like this one for example, which you can see is quite beautiful. I'll come back to this in a little bit more detail soon. Now, since that video first came out two years ago, there's been a whole bunch of new mutant cacti hit the market. And so, I thought what we'd do is a bit of an update, have a look at some of the cool, wonderful, weird, and grotesque new stuff that's out there interwoven with some of the classics. And I thought, you know what?

[00:01:17]What we'll do is we'll go from that spectrum. We'll start at the beautiful and we'll finish up with what I reckon are some of the most terrifyingly revolting looking plants probably available in the world today. So, let's get stuck right in to the wonderful world of cactus mutants. Now, like I said, cactus mutants or monstrous plants are a variation on the original theme.

[00:01:43]So, as we go through each of these, what I might do is I'll put a picture up on the screen so you can see how these plants normally grow. Now, this first one is an absolute classic. It's beautiful. It's a cultivar named Ulyia Castana varisporales. And that name vary sporales reflects the fact that it actually grows in three different forms.

[00:02:07]There's this version which is like a towering spiral concentric with spines emerging from I suppose one rib that goes all the way around to the very top.

[00:02:21]It's like almost like a fair ground slide just going all the way down to the bottom and those vicious looking spines come out all the way. Now the interesting thing about this is that at the very tip of this plant it's changed form. It's gone in to the second form which is the more monstros version. I think this plant may have had a meie bug or something having a bit of a chomp on the uh on the growth point. And when that's happened, it said, "You know what? Stuff the spiral form. Let's try something new." So, it's going to be really interesting to see how this emerges at the very top. Spiral form, monstrous form, and then I'll show you the other one. I'll just need to reach over here and try not to stab myself in the process.

[00:03:06]You've got here the crested form. Now, this version grows in that more fan shaped arrangement as you can see here.

[00:03:15]And sometimes it will revert to the other types. You can see there are a few little pups coming off the top that are doing different things. Now, how do you know which one you're going to get? It's a bit of a roll of the dice. I'm not 100% sure what the odds are, but from what I've heard, the monstros version you see at the top here is by far the most common. Then our concentric spirals and then the crested form only pops up very, very rarely. Both of these came from the same original plant. I just chopped it into two and uh now here we are. Stunning. Beautiful. Although this one perhaps not quite so beautiful, but what I reckon is a pretty remarkable way to start scratching the surface of monstros cacti. Now, here we've got another one um very very popular in cultivation. Kind of transcended cacti and broken out into the mainstream. This is the cultivar named Matillo Cactus Geometry's Fuku Rocku Rayu Zinbaku.

[00:04:19]That's a Japanese cultivar name that means lucky dragon tree.

[00:04:23]Now in the western tradition, having a good close look at this thing, people have just rejected that name outright.

[00:04:32]Now it's commonly known as the blue booby cactus or the titty cactus or simply booby cactus because when you have a look at it, it just looks like a stacked pole of breasts. And from each of those breasts, I suppose there's a little nipple with a spine coming out.

[00:04:50]And I think the ironic thing about that is that those little points where spines come out of cacti, they're called arolles. And that derives directly from the word areola. So there's something going on here anatomically correctly um which aligns with the name. Fascinating.

[00:05:08]Now the normal version of this is just a pretty standard looking branching columnar cactus from Mexico. And this thing arose as a random mutation just in a nursery somewhere in Japan. Not exactly sure when, but pretty decent span of time ago because now you can find these all over the world. Like I said, they've entered into the mainstream. Compared to your typical motus geometric, they are a little bit more finicky. You can see this one's got a bit of scarring on it because they get a bit of fungal infection. They're a little bit more coldrone.

[00:05:44]Generally speaking, they need a little bit more babying than the far more hardy Matillo cactus geometricans. But as you can see, beautiful plant with a fantastic bit of novelty value about it.

[00:05:58]You know, normally cacti, everyone compares them to dicks, but this one has gone the whole other way. Fantastic, eh?

[00:06:05]And now I interrupt this joyful rabbit hole exploration of monstrosity and mutants in the cacti world to highlight my t-shirt here. This is a totally rad new addition to the ariden merch line. I collaborated with Master Chew who does some of the most insane cactus and succulent theme graphic design out there. Honestly, look him up. We came up with this. We've also got a Cordex Club variation on the theme if that's more your thing. And they're available now.

[00:06:35]You can follow the website. Every sale helps support aridine. And they're available in black and white everywhere in the world. How good is that? Anyway, let's get back into the weird monstros plants. Now, the thing about monstrosity is that you never quite know what strange form you're going to get. We've seen already a concentric spiral and we've seen something that somehow I suppose through an anthropomorphic lens we can read as being part of the human anatomy. Now the next plant that I'm going to share with you goes into that spiral form as well, but approaches it in a slightly different way. I cannot believe that I've never shared this particular monstrosity on this channel.

[00:07:20]It's a real beauty, but here we are. Let me just heave this one up and share with you this. Have a look at the spiraling form on this. This is a serius for bessie sporales. Now these things have become super super popular. They're starting to enter into the landscape trade. At least they are in Australia and I reckon they are all around the world. The amazing thing about this, aside from its twisting corkcrew form, is that in time it'll turn into this many branched spiraling wonder. Real sort of statement plants just keep getting bigger. You think about these things, they're big columnar cacti ordinarily. Apply that sort of size to something of this fantastic architectural shape and genuinely remarkable. Now, the thing about most monstrosities is that they don't come true to seed or often they don't flower at all. So, you can't get seeds ever.

[00:08:23]The first two plants we looked at, they never flower. If ever you see seeds being offered of either of those two cultivars, you know it's a scam. And so, you know you need to run the other direction. But the wonderful thing about these guys, not only do they flower, but the monstrosity stays true even in the seedlings. As a result, they're super easy to propagate. I've got a little one that I've grown for my own seeds, and it's probably only this tall now, but already it's starting to get that fantastic corkcrew shape. So, this one is a bit unique in that regard because generally speaking, what you're going to find is that all your monstrosities are just sterile. I suppose there's something about being a mutant, right?

[00:09:10]Mutants and sterility, they sort of go hand in hand. And what that means is that ordinarily every single version of that cultivar that you find, like let me just pull this guy back up, is a cutting from the original plant when it popped up in a nursery. This thing, genetically speaking, is identical to the plant that first emerged in a Japanese nursery decades ago. and it's just been cut and cut and cut and propagated and propagated and propagated.

[00:09:46]They're all clones, but not so with the spiral cactus. So, we've been cataloging a variety of more beautiful forms and now I think we're starting to slip down the slide into grotescery. Nothing quite repulsive yet. We're kind of getting a bit more curious.

[00:10:05]I love the name on this plant. This is a tricoserius hulk balls Australian cultivar which now I know is extending its reach out into the world. And if you have a good look at this, what you're going to notice is that that ball's name is quite apt. It takes the form of a whole series of mounded balls of plant.

[00:10:30]Why is that so? This is a type of monstrosity called a stacking form. And there are a few different varieties of this out there in the world. There is a Myillo cactus geometraen stacker as well. All of them end up looking just like this. Although this one has an interesting addition to it in that you can see it's kind of a lime green. There must be a little streak of variegation about this plant as well beyond just its ordinary monstrosity. Now, doesn't matter what you do, how long you grow this for, in time, you're just going to get a bigger and bigger clump of these testicular balls. It's outstanding. And the naming conventional on this one, reflective more so of Australian Laracanism, I reckon, compared to maybe like that Fukuoku Rayu Zinboku, which is all a bit of Japanese formality.

[00:11:28]This is an absolute favorite. very new to the scene, at least in terms of widespread cultivation. If you've been paying close attention to the Australian triricoseria scene, this one's been out for a few years, but it's an absolute beauty. And I'm so excited that a plant name after balls is starting to hit the mainstream. How good is that? And now we come into some genuinely repulsive monstrosity. This is an absolute classic. This is Mamalaria Bockasana Fred. Yes, the cultivar name is just Fred. Whoever named this thing clearly has a very dry sense of humor. Now, your typical Mamalaria Bkasana is kind of a bundle of spines and fur. Typical kind of glo shaped, small squat, all the usual kind of cactusy things. These guys, however, as you can see, look like some kind of, I don't know, mix between a rubbery tumor and just gelatinous goo.

[00:12:31]They're really quite revolting to look at. But it's not just about the visuals with your Freds. They're so tactile.

[00:12:38]They're wonderfully rubbery. Have a look at this.

[00:12:42]I love it. And that's why when I saw this fantastic artisal skull pot, I couldn't help but just lean into the kitchen of it. I just love the idea of like this cauliflower of brains erupting out of a crack in the skull. How cool is that? It's just so to my particular tastes, which I know certainly doesn't align with everyone's idea of taste.

[00:13:06]There goes a cockroach. Now, the thing about these, I talked earlier about how these plants are often sterile. That's true of this one, too, but it's not for a lack of trying. Every year, it kind of erupts with these little anemic flower buds. You know, they're they're white, they're pathetic, they don't have any of the sexual organs within them to be able to do anything. But it adds in a way a little bit of charm to quite a repulsive plant and I just absolutely love them for it. Now there must be something about mammalarias and formless hideous monsters in their monstros forms because I believe this is a different kind of mammalia not derived from that same Fred but looking incredibly similar. This is a plant that I purchased recently and it's been given the let's say fairly original name Fred 2. And you can see similar kind of thing going on in that kind of tumorous eruptive thing.

[00:14:14]Although this looks more like some I don't know real knobbybly zucchinis or something. And then the thing that I think just pushes this over the edge into real hideous untold terrors kind of territory. The fact that every so often just puts out a little spine. Fantastic.

[00:14:35]It's like a little reminder. Hey, you know what? This isn't some grotesque melting cucumber. This is actually a cactus and I want to make sure that you don't forget about that.

[00:14:47]This guy is relatively new to the market as well. Hideous, revolting, and when I saw that it was for sale, I just thought, you know what? I've got Fred one. Let's get the sequel as well. Now, you're probably wondering, where do we go from there? How can there be something more grotesque, more horrifying than that rubbery tumor of a Fred or Fred 2? The thing about monstrosity and the thing about our psychological response to terror is that there's this thing called the uncanny.

[00:15:20]Now, you might have heard about it in terms of the uncanny valley. It's this idea that as you start approaching something that looks recognizably human or animal, but you don't quite get there, it actually makes it more and more revolting and horrifying. It's a little bit why, you know, the the cartoony people in the first Toy Story movie were so terrifying because they don't quite look human enough to look human. And as a result, they're quite repulsive. And so this next plant that I'm going to share with you, the culmination, the climax of the hideous monstrosities that we've looked at in this video sits in that space. It's a monkeytail cactus. A monstrous monkeytail cactus. a hideous, repulsive, terrifying version of a monkeytail cactus. Let me show you.

[00:16:13]Have a look at that. Now, a monkey tail cactus, of course, is defined by its beautiful monkey furlike spines. They hang off the cliffs in Bolivia, and they're just covered in this delightfully soft almost furlike spinage. What happens when you take the spines off a monkey tail? What happens when you shave a monkey tail?

[00:16:36]You get this. This is called the Hildo Terra collidonus enermis. And that name inmus is the Latin binomial which means without spines. And there are lots of cacti that have inermis forms. Generally speaking, it adds an interesting kind of architectural quality to them. Imagine like a golden barrel, big round thing, and rather than being covered in dense yellow spines, it's just bare, smooth, naked. That's a beautiful plant. And although it's monstrous in a way, probably not worth sharing.

[00:17:14]But when you have this thing, this hideous, repulsive, very slightly rubbery monstrosity, that says to me peak horror. Honestly, I can't imagine something more terrifying in the plant world. And so when I saw it just the other week, I only bought this about a week ago. When I saw it, I was like, I must have that plant because if there's one type of plant that pulls me in more than any other. It's the grotesque, it's the weird, the horrifying, the monstros.

[00:17:54]This stuff is peak cactus.

[00:17:58]They don't get any better than that.

[00:18:00]Now, what do you do if you want to start collecting monstrosities? Well, the obvious answer is you need to just start buying them because it's very hard to produce them yourselves. But if you do want to go out into the world and create your own monstrosity, the only real option is to sew an absolute pile of seeds. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon thousands.

[00:18:26]And very occasionally, you hit the jackpot and you get something that's genetically a little bit different from everything else.

[00:18:35]As you well might know, I sew a whole lot of seeds. I sew them relentlessly, probably thousands every year. And so in my time, I have had a few variations pop up. And I thought I'd share this one with you. This is a copia poa echinoides bridgesi. And unlike the typical form, this one has actually come up at the moment anyway with an enormous form.

[00:19:03]It's very different to how these things ordinarily look. I can probably find an ordinary one back here if I poke around long enough. Oh, here we go. Come with me. You can see that's your typical shape. They're dark purplish, ordinarily spined gloose things at this age. This one came from the same batch of seeds.

[00:19:27]And visually, you can just see the difference. Now, is this thing going to stay stable like this? I have no idea.

[00:19:35]All I can do is continue to grow it out and hope that there is a genetic stability about it. It's not just going to revert to the true type. If it does stay this way, you never know. Maybe in 10, 15 years after I've propagated this extensively, you'll be able to find your own weird little spineless copier po out there in amongst the collections of the world. You never know. Did make a mistake though. I grafted it to speed it up and somehow didn't realize that my graph stock was actually variegated.

[00:20:09]Ridiculous. That's a whole story for another day. Variegation, an entirely different type of mutation which is less horrifying and more beautiful. But I won't go down that rabbit hole today.

[00:20:22]We'll end it right there. I hope you've enjoyed this updated insight into the joyful world of monstros cacti. I'm Michael. This is Azine. And I'll catch you next Monday.