Architect is turning out to be one of the best seedlings I’ve selected so far. It is almost certainly a Malo 4 x Malo 4 F2 cross from seed aquired through Misplant, but the tag was lost. It is morphologically remarkable, with consistently very flat sides that plump out right below the growing tip. The light green jade-like tip color can be luminecent and almost translucent looking. The color is very frosty greyish green as seen in many malo4 crosses. The spine size is reasonably small, though not tiny. It usually grows as 6 ribbed and occasionally 7. So far it seems to be relatively petite but I cut it so much for propagation that I don’t have any large mature specimens. This is a very handsome and extremely symmetrical cactus. It almost looks like the structure was designed for aesthetic appeal, thus the name.

I’ve now grown tens of thousands of seedlings, selecting the most interesting for further observation and I don’t name cactus willy nilly. Architect stands out in the crowd. As far as the flat sided morphology goes, it is as good as it gets, and as fat and flat as Gordita. For breeding toward flat sided cactus, it is a top priority parent for now. How it performs outside regarding cracking with excessive moisture is yet to be seen. I have pieces rooting to plant outside so we can find out.

Architect is currently under propagation for sale. Likely early cuttings will be auctioned until I have enough to put them in the webstore.