The plant above is a Mammillaria candida, but the tag on it says Mammillovdia candida. A while back, I wrote that Carl Linnaeus named the Mammillaria candida, and used it to support my theory that Linnaeus was inordinately obsessed with nipples and named these cacti Mammillaria because they have nipples that the spines grow out of. It turns out I jumped to a wrong conclusion: one of Linnaeus’s students, Belgian botanist Michaël Scheidweiler named these cacti Mammillaria in 1838.

In 1951, Austrian botanist Franz Buxbaum renamed the plant Mammilloydia candida because the seed covering is slightly different from other Mammillarias. But most people, most botanists – who care – most people in the cactus world, have said something like Awww, come on, this plant is a Mammillaria; you’re just splitting hairs.

When I was in the San Jose Cactus and Succulent Society, I learned there are Lumpers and Splitters, and I am a Lumper, and the plant above is a Mammillaria despite what the tag says.