It is so beautiful it looks artificial

I can assure you that they are NOT straw flowers but the real deal!

Nice

I wish I could get them to live long enough, to grow 4 inches in diameter! But I'm not really quite so sure its an actual 'purple', though. More red, I always thought.

I do think there might be some purple, Pelecyphora, (as opposed to red, pink, white or bicolor). But usually they are grown so slowly, they never want to grow fast, after the seedling stage, Unless, maybe with strobiliformis and it's happening just before becoming flowering size, requiring of course, that they get lots of constant direct sunshine water and heat all simi;taneously, the entire spring. But who can stand the heat of Arizona, for a spring like that, only to get bake near 110 all summer long?

The plant pictured is maybe 1" ~ 1.5" in diameter and to my eyes the flowers appear to be in the "purple" family. These flowers, posted in another thread of mine are red.

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