To the origin of the cultivar Super Kabuto / Miracle Kabuto an abridged version from an earlier publication by KOBAYASHI, A. (1996): Cacti and succulents in Japan, part 3, Cact. Succ. Journ. (US) 68(5): 245-249
KOBAYASHI, A. (1996): Cacti and succulents in Japan, part 3, Cact. Succ. Journ. (US) 68(5): 245-249
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„It is well known in Japan that the original Kabuto plants originated as natural mutations in habitat. I will briefly relate their stories here.
Super Kabuto
T. Sato (1986, 1993) related that M. Takeo found the parent plant of Super Kabuto in 1981 in a U.S. nursery, where the plant had turned yellow from neglect. Nevertheless, its large white dots were remarkable. Under Tekeo’s care, the plant rerooted and bloomed the next year. About 30% of its first hundred seedlings had similar dots. Sato bought the parent plant and all the seedlings and gave them the name of Super Kabuto. He first offered them in his nursery catalog of April 1983.
Regretfully, the original plant (Fig. 1) died, but many offspring survived. M. Takeo created many seedlings from crosses with A. asterias. Some of these strains showed distinctive characteristics and were called Super Snow White and Zebra (or Tiger). The Snow White strain had very dense dots entirely covering the stem, while in Zebra they formed bands of dots. The late A. Shimizu (1994) noted that the two strains arose from crossing with densely dotted clones of A. asterias. In the early crossings some of the parents were not true A. asterias and therefore spiny clones often appeared.
Of course Super Kabuto is distinguished by its large white dots, but the following
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differences have also been noted (Sato, 1986, 1993; Shimizu, 1994):
1. Its genetic influence on subsequent hybrids is strong, although T. Sato (1993) created intermediate forms and some typical A. asterias forms often appeared in the F2 and later generations. I believe that Super Kabuto should be classified as a strain.
2. The dots are fluffy.
3. The epidermis is harder than in the normal form of Kabuto and cracks easily.
4. The stem is small, the diameter of the parent plant being only 8 cm.
5. The areoles are small.
Breeders of Kabuto try to obtain larger stems and areoles without any epidermal cracking, but this is very difficult to do.
Miracle Kabuto
In 1980 the parent plant of Miracle Kabuto was also introduced by M. Takeo, who found it among many field-collected plants of A. asterias in a U.S. nursery. It also was named by T. Sato, as Miracle Kabuto. It is well-known that the original plant was sold for three million yen! I am happy to report that this plant is still alive (Fig. 3, 4). The differences from Super Kabuto are as follows:
1. The stem is large, presently being 19 cm thick and 16 cm tall.
2. The white dots are not fluffy.
3. Reproduction from seeds is very difficult.
The dots near the base of the original plant are small, as a normal A. asterias. T. Sato (1986) thought that the characteristics of Miracle Kabuto would appear only in a large mature plant. The photograph in Cacti by C. Innes and C. Glass (1991) is of Super Kabuto, not Miracle Kabuto. Because the photo is labelled “Mirakuru Kabuto” (“mirakuru” means miracle), the plant must have been obtained from a Japanese, who probably confused the two. At present no Miracle seedling is obtainable, even in Japan.
There is another Miracle Kabuto strain in Japan. The most beautiful specimen adorned the front cover of Kabuto, published by the Kabutophile Society of Japan (Fig. 6). This clone is referred to as Miracle Kabuto F2. Its correct origin is uncertain. Its dots differ from those of typical Miracle Kabuto in being rather similar to those of Super Kabuto. Some nurserymen claim that this second strain is not the true Miracle Kabuto and the name therefore should not be used. However, kabutophiles decided to use the name Miracle Kabuto F2 until the original clone became available. If it does
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not contain genes of the original clone, then it is simply a superb seedling of A. asterias…”
Astrophytum asterias
Astrophytum asterias cv. Super Kabuto & Mirakuru
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