> I have seed ... from a recent BX and wondered when to plant them. I > live in Phoenix area and someone from Yuma said they do well there so > thought I'd try them here. Hello Nancy, I replied about mine already sprouting. I read about them on the Internet and followed what I found. I haven't seen them in habitat yet, though the late Eric Anderson from our local cactus club told me about finding them in habitat. Plant ASAP or wait until it warms up. I filed with a fine file until a spot of white showed through. This is difficult to do without dropping the seeds, which will promptly roll away. I held them firmly with a needle-nosed pliers. File them over a white bath towel so they don't bounce and roll away when you drop them and so you can see them when you drop them. I learned this the hard way, but I have fantastic close vision. The dogs enjoyed me being on all fours. File A. gonzalezii opposite the attachment scar of the spherical seed if you are able to see it. File A. palmatifida on the convex part of the curved seed. Soak the seeds for a day or at most two in water, changing daily. Plant as soon as they swell up or after two days' soaking. Pull off the membrane around the seeds if you find it. Plant the seeds 1/2" below the surface in a very deep pot. I used a 5 gallon nursery pot for 5 A. palmatifida seeds and a similarly-sized decorative glazed container for 5 A. gonzalezii seeds. Use our local soil, not a cactus mix. They will be in the pot a long time so you don't want to use a potting mix that rots every few years. They grow among rocks on slopes so they have excellent drainage at home. They make deep taproots the first year and just a few leaves. I bought a seedling A. palmatifida once in a standard 3.25" pot and I couldn't keep it watered enough during our summers. So use a deep pot. Put the pot outside someplace hot but not in full sun all day. Water when the top is dry, but don't keep the pot soaking wet once they are up. The taproot is supposed to go quite deep, quite quickly. My seedlings get about 5 hours of morning sun now. Adult plants grow among rocks in full sun. Keep them growing as long as you can the first year. In the fall if the leaves yellow let them dry out but don't let them freeze. If mine stay green in my sunroom I'm going to water them all winter. Where they are from it gets a lot colder at night than here in Phoenix, but in the ground is warmer than in a big pot. Next spring I'm not sure exactly what to do. A lot of things like this need to be dry until they begin growing on their own. Others need a wakeup shower. I had planned on asking Shaun in Yuma (the seed donor) how he handles his. He said they should flower the second season. I got 3/5 A. palmatifida and 1/5 A. gonzalezii to sprout and they were up within a few days of planting a month ago or so. I expected better germination. I think I didn't file deeply enough so the water didn't soak in properly. The remaining seeds should sprout over the next few years, as is common with desert seeds with thick coats. I gave the rest of the seeds to people at the DBG and Boyce Thompson Arboretum. Leo Martin Phoenix, Arizona USA