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Echinocereus

Echinocereus
Family: Cactaceae
Echinocereus image
Max Licher
  • FNA
  • Resources
Allan D. Zimmerman & Bruce D. Parfitt in Flora of North America (vol. 4)
Plants usually erect, ascending, sprawling, pendent, or decumbent, branched or unbranched, sometimes forming dense mounds to 500 branches, usually not deep-seated in substrate. Roots diffuse (usually a fascicle of several, tuberlike roots greatly exceeding stem diameter in E. poselgeri; sometimes adventitious in E. pentalophus). Stems unsegmented, yellow-green to dark green, spheric to long cylindric, sometimes tapering distally, (1-)2-70(-130)[-200] × (0.6-)1-15 cm, less than 40 cm at flowering, skin hard and brittle (less often soft), tuberculate (especially on immature plants) or ribbed; ribs 4-26, crests indistinctly to prominently undulate (irregularly notched or sharply folded if desiccated); areoles 1-52 mm apart along ribs, circular to linear, never completely confluent; cortex and pith soft, mucilaginous. Spines (0-)4-55 per areole, white, yellow, reddish, brown, or black, subulate or acicular to bristlelike, (0-)3-150 × 0.1-2.5 mm, hard, smooth or microscopically roughened (especially in E. triglochidiatus); radial spines (0-)4-38 (-45) per areole, straight or curved, sometimes pectinately arranged, (0-)2-40(-50) mm; central spines 0-17 per areole, straight, curved, or twisted, never hooked, terete, elliptic in cross section or variously angled to flattened. Flowers diurnal (a few species remaining open at night) [or nocturnal], bisexual (at least appearing so) or functionally unisexual, ± lateral on stem from year-old areoles (rarely terminal), broadly to narrowly funnelform or short tubular, 20-120 × (10-)15-150 mm; flower tube 5-26[-50] mm (measured from base of innermost tepals to base of nectar chamber); inner tepals pink, red, magenta, orange, yellow, brownish, or greenish (rarely white), proximally a darker or contrasting color or similar to distal portion; ovary smooth to tuberculate, scales usually minute, spines very prominent, areoles woolly; stigma lobes 5-22, green or yellowish green [rarely white or red]. Fruits indehiscent or dehiscent through short longitudinal slits, green, purplish brown, pink, or red, spheric to narrowly obovoid, usually 20-30 mm, juicy, drying quickly, scales minute; areoles spiny, spine clusters usually deciduous at maturity. Seeds black or dark reddish brown, spheric to obovoid, 0.8-2 mm, strongly tuberculate or rugose; testa cells strongly convex, sometimes irregularly confluent into ridges with interstitial pits. x =

Echinocereus was treated as a distinct North American tribe Echinocereeae Buxbaum before recent chloroplast DNA analyses demonstrated that Echinocereus is nested within tribe Pachycereeae Buxbaum emend. A. C. Gibson & K. E. Horak, including the dominant columnar cacti of North America (R. S. Wallace and A. C. Gibson 2002). Whether Echinocereus and its closest relatives deserve recognition as a subtribe within the newly defined tribe awaits more extensive and intensive DNA investigations of all clades within the tribe.

Many of the species of Echinocereus are confusingly polytypic, having geographic races (not all of them named), and many populations are polymorphic. One 'species' (E. pectinatus as circumscribed by L. D. Benson 1982) is polyphyletic.

Although stem growth is indeterminate and branching is lateral, near their bases stems often shrivel and shorten more or less in pace with apical growth, pulling the branch-attachments down to ground level or below. The distance between areoles (interareolar distance), as employed here, is measured from centers of areoles along rib crests on relatively new growth, i.e., before ribs wrinkle. In some species, flower buds and stem-branch buds erupt through the epidermis of the stem adaxial to spine clusters, leaving a permanent scar; a condition referred to as 'erumpent.'

The vernacular name strawberry cactus, used for several species, refers to the strawberry-like flavor of the ripe fruits, which are avidly harvested by human foragers. The largest and most sought-after fruits are those of Echinocereus stramineus.

The key below will not work without flowers and/or fruits.

Species within checklist: NAU-Yuma BSC 414 || << 51 - 100 taxa >>
Echinocereus mojavensis
Media resource of Echinocereus mojavensis
Map not
Available
Echinocereus mombergerianus
Media resource of Echinocereus mombergerianus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus nicholii
Media resource of Echinocereus nicholii
Map not
Available
Echinocereus nivosus
Media resource of Echinocereus nivosus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus occidentalis
Media resource of Echinocereus occidentalis
Map not
Available
Echinocereus ortegae
Media resource of Echinocereus ortegae
Map not
Available
Echinocereus pacificus
Media resource of Echinocereus pacificus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus palmeri
Media resource of Echinocereus palmeri
Map not
Available
Echinocereus pamanesii
Media resource of Echinocereus pamanesii
Map not
Available
Echinocereus pamanesiorum
Media resource of Echinocereus pamanesiorum
Map not
Available
Echinocereus papillosus
Media resource of Echinocereus papillosus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus parkeri
Media resource of Echinocereus parkeri
Map not
Available
Echinocereus paucispinus
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Echinocereus pectinatus
Media resource of Echinocereus pectinatus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus pentalophus
Media resource of Echinocereus pentalophus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus perbellus
Media resource of Echinocereus perbellus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus polyacanthus
Media resource of Echinocereus polyacanthus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus poselgeri
Media resource of Echinocereus poselgeri
Map not
Available
Echinocereus primolanatus
Media resource of Echinocereus primolanatus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus princeps
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Echinocereus procumbens
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Echinocereus pseudopectinatus
Media resource of Echinocereus pseudopectinatus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus pulchellus
Media resource of Echinocereus pulchellus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus rayonensis
Media resource of Echinocereus rayonensis
Map not
Available
Echinocereus rayonesensis
Media resource of Echinocereus rayonesensis
Map not
Available
Echinocereus rebmanii
Media resource of Echinocereus rebmanii
Map not
Available
Echinocereus reichenbachii
Media resource of Echinocereus reichenbachii
Map not
Available
Echinocereus relictus
Media resource of Echinocereus relictus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus rigidissimus
Media resource of Echinocereus rigidissimus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus robustus
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Echinocereus rosei
Media
not available
Map not
Available
Echinocereus russanthus
Media resource of Echinocereus russanthus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus sanpedroensis
Media resource of Echinocereus sanpedroensis
Map not
Available
Echinocereus scheeri
Media resource of Echinocereus scheeri
Map not
Available
Echinocereus schereri
Media resource of Echinocereus schereri
Map not
Available
Echinocereus schmollii
Media resource of Echinocereus schmollii
Map not
Available
Echinocereus sciurus
Media resource of Echinocereus sciurus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus scopulorum
Media resource of Echinocereus scopulorum
Map not
Available
Echinocereus sharpii
Media resource of Echinocereus sharpii
Map not
Available
Echinocereus spinigemmatus
Media resource of Echinocereus spinigemmatus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus stolonifer
Media resource of Echinocereus stolonifer
Map not
Available
Echinocereus stramineus
Media resource of Echinocereus stramineus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus subinermis
Media resource of Echinocereus subinermis
Map not
Available
Echinocereus tamaulipensis
Media resource of Echinocereus tamaulipensis
Map not
Available
Echinocereus triglochidiatus
Media resource of Echinocereus triglochidiatus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus viereckii
Media resource of Echinocereus viereckii
Map not
Available
Echinocereus viridiflorus
Media resource of Echinocereus viridiflorus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus websterianus
Media resource of Echinocereus websterianus
Map not
Available
Echinocereus yavapaiensis
Media resource of Echinocereus yavapaiensis
Map not
Available
Echinocereus zapalinamensis
Media resource of Echinocereus zapalinamensis
Map not
Available
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This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services [MG-70-19-0057-19].

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