Gymnocalycium mihanovichii

Alberto Fric undertook his second journey between 1903 and 1905. He found a plant that until then was completely unknown to him in the woods of the shore of Rio Paraguay near Puerto Casado in Paraguay. Those plants were lost. A specimen they found about 100 km in the north, Fric and Gürke described as G. mihanovichii in 1905. The plants were named after Nicolas Mihanovich, a Yugoslavian shipowner who supported the excursions. As far as I know, G. mihanovichii was never again found in the mentioned area. We also did not see a trace of it in the given area of G. mihanovichii on our journey.

In publications, there are a lot of specified types of G. mihanovichii which - in my opinion - are unjustified. We were able to find a very intact habitat near the Mennonite's colony Filadelfia. Regretfully, this is an exception; it is only a matter of time until the last regions will disappear irretrievably, due to colonization or grazing. In 1966 (in the lexicon of cacti) Backeberg described the plants around Filadelfia as G. mihanovichii var. filadelfiense. Those specimen which Backeberg desribed were from Heinrich Unger from Filadelfia. As a striking feature of distinction for the type, Backeberg mentions the height (100m as he writes) and the dark punctuation including often missing or faintly visible crosswise ribbons on the body.

Gymnocalycium mihanovichiiSeptember/October 2001
G. mihanovichii VoS 26, east of Filadelfia	G. mihanovichii VoS 26, plants are up to 250 mm in height	Monvillea, Opuntia, Tillandsien and plenty of Bromelien belong to the habitat	G. mihanovichii VoS 26, the plants are very old