CACTUS FAMILY 157 



2. Ferocactus acanthodes (Lemaire) Britt. & Rose. Miner's Compass. 



Fig. 3333. 



Echinocactus acanthodes Lemaire, Cact. Gen. Nov. Sp. 106. 1839. 



Echinocactus viridescens var. cylindraceus Eng-elm. Amer. Journ. Sci. II. 14: 338. 1852. 



Echinocactus cylindraceus Engelm. Proc. Amer. Acad. 3: 275. 1856. 



Echinocactus californicus Schum. Gesamtb. Kakteenk. 357. 1898. 



Echinocactus Copoldii Schum. loc. cit. 



Ferocactus acanthodes Britt. & Rose, Cactaceae 3 : 129. 1922. 



Ferocactus Rostii Britt. & Rose, op. cit. 146. 



Simple or cespitose, globular when young but becoming cylindrical and 2-2.5 m. high, very 

 spiny, the body almost completely hidden by the tangle of spines; ribs 20-30, acute, 1-2.5 cm. 

 high. Areoles 1-1 . 5 cm. in diameter, densely brown-felted when young, crowded ; spines bright 

 red to clear yellow; central spines 1-4, subulate, slender, somewhat flattened or only angled, 

 annulate, often tortuous and more or less curved, not hooked at the tips, 5-12 cm. long; radial 

 spines of 5-7 stout and 2-7 slender bristle-like spines, or the latter type lacking; flowers cam- 

 panulate, yellow, often tinged with orange or red, 4-6 cm. long, the limb about as broad when ex- 

 panded ; scales of tube and ovary imbricate when young, ovate, blotched with purple on the back ; 

 perianth-segments oblong to spatulate, often erosulate ; filaments yellow ; style greenish yellow ; 

 fruit 3-3.5 cm. long, oblong; seeds 3-3.5 mm. long, pitted. 



Dry rocky desert slopes and hillsides, Lower Sonoran Zone; Inyo County, California, to Nevada, Arizona, 

 northwestern Sonora, and to southern Sierra San Pedro Martir, Lower California. April-June. 



7. ECHINOMASTUS Britt. & Rose, Cactaceae 3: 147. 1922. 



Plants small, globose to short-cylindric, with low^, somewhat spiraled ribs divided into 

 low but usually distinct tubercles. Areoles bearing several spreading, often intricately 

 intertangled acicular spines, central spines 1 to several or absent, straight or slightly 

 curved but not hooked, when present usually stoutish. Flowers borne at base of short, 

 woolly groove nearly buried by spine-cluster in young areoles near apex of plant, purple 

 or pinkish purple. Fruit oblong, scaly, at length dry, dehiscing by a basal pore, the scales 

 and their axils naked. Seeds black, muricate, the hilum ventral, depressed. [Name Greek, 

 meaning breast of a hedgehog, referring to the spiny tubercles.] 



A genus of less than a dozen species from the southwestern United States and northern Mexico. Type 

 species, Echinocactus erectocentrus J. M. Coult. 



1. Echinomastus Johnsonii (Parry) E. M. Baxter. Eight-spined Hedgehog. 



Fig. 3334. 



Echinocactus Johnsonii Parry in Engelm. Bot. King Expl. 117. 1871. 



Echinocactus Johnsonii \s,r. octocentrus J. M. Coult. Contr. U.S. Nat. Herb. 3: 374. 1896. 



Ferocactus Johnsonii Britt. & Rose, Cactaceae 3: 141. 1922. 



Echinomastus Johnsonii E. M. Baxter, Calif. Cactus 75. 1935. 



Simple oval plant 8-15 cm. tall, 6-10 cm. in diameter; ribs 17-21, narrow, 3-6 mm. high, 

 undulate-tuberculate, almost completely hidden by the interlocking spines. Areoles 1.5-2 cm. 

 apart vertically, with a short, narrow woolly groove running from the upper margin of the areole 

 to the axil of the tubercle ; apex of plant devoid of spines but a heavily felted-over circular patch 

 1-1.5 cm. in diameter at the apex; radial spines 9-14, grayish to yellowish, tinged with red 

 toward the apex, often becoming darker in age, 1-2 cm. long, radiate-spreading ; central spines 

 4-8, stouter, darker red, 2-3.5 cm. long, straight, distinctly bulbous at the base, divaricately 

 spreading; flowers 4-6 cm. long, nearly as wide, the petals pink to deep rose or red and with a 

 silvery sheen; scales of the ovary obtuse, membranous on the margins; fruit oblong, 10-15 mm. 

 long, nearly naked ; seeds finely reticulate-pitted. 



Rocky hillsides in lime-impregnated soil. Lower Sonoran Zone; Inyo County, California, and adjacent 

 Arizona and Nevada. March-April. 



8. SCLEROCACTUS Britt. & Rose, Cactaceae 3: 212. 1922. 



Simple, or rarely cespitose cactus with undulate, tuberculate prominent ribs, inter- 

 tangled spines of three kinds. Areoles bearing short, terete, white acicular radial spines, 

 maroon to bright red, longer, terete, strongly hooked central spines and angulate, flat- 

 tened, somewhat tortuous, white, unhooked spines in upper part of the areole. Flowers 

 borne above and adjacent to areoles near apex of plant, subcampanulate. Ovary oblong, 

 with tufts of short wool in the axils of the scattered scales. Fruit pyriform, dehiscing 

 by a basal pore, nearly naked. Seeds tuberculate, large ; embryo curved, endosperm abun- 

 dant. [Name Greek, referring to the formidable hooked spines.] 



A genus of 2 species from the deserts of the southwestern United States. Type species, Echinocactus 



potyancistrus Engelm. & Bigelow. 



