(https://i50.tinypic.com/35jhz55.jpg)
this plant never opens the flowers buds and they remain closed on the plant for a long time, last year I took some of them and grafted
(https://i46.tinypic.com/2vijfj7.jpg)
these are the results after 8 months
(https://i48.tinypic.com/2yxfcqh.jpg)
it is flowering
nice!
it's quite common with astrophytum cultivars, we noticed too taht in caase of kikko the flower buds turn into offsets and if you graft them they turn in a kikko form, even if the motherplant is not kikko.
This is maybe the reason because some kikko obtained with this propagation are not able to transfer a good genetic.
With fukuryu we noticed also that when there are these buds-offsets the motherplant doesn't flower, but if they are grafted on another stock they develop true flowers in a short time.
Any experience about it?