Ferocactus

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Ferocactus
Ferocactus macrodiscus

Ferocactus macrodiscus

Systematics
Nuclear eudicotyledons
Order : Clove-like (Caryophyllales)
Family : Cactus family (Cactaceae)
Subfamily : Cactoideae
Tribe : Cacteae
Genre : Ferocactus
Scientific name
Ferocactus
Britton & Rose

Ferocactus is a genus of plants fromthe cactus family (Cactaceae). The botanical name of the genus is derived from the Latin adjective "ferus" for wild , untamed and refers to the strong thorns of some species.

description

Ferocacti are flat-round, spherical or cylindrical stem succulents . They are usually single or branch out basal. Strongly branching species form large cushion-like groups of several hundred heads. The areoles standing on the eleven to 30 (up to 60) often humped (in young plants almost dissolved in warts) ribs have strong thorns that are yellow to strong red, brown and then gray with age. The radial spines are usually splayed radially, the central spines are more conspicuous and larger, straight or hook-shaped, often flattened and curled across.

The flowers appear individually from the apex areoles of large plants. The flower tubes are short, densely scaled on the outside and thornless. The colors of the bloom range from green to orange and red (-white striped) to purple. The fruits that arise after fertilization turn white, yellow or orange when ripe , open at the base, then dry out and release the mostly black, sometimes brown seeds .

Ferocactus echidne
Ferocactus latispinus
Ferocactus pilosus
Ferocactus robustus
Ferocactus viridescens var. Viridescens
Ferocactus wislizeni

Systematics and distribution

The genus is native to the southern United States and Mexico .

The first description by Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose was published in 1922.

The type species of the genus is Echinocactus wislizeni . The genus is divided into two sections with the following species:

Synonyms for the genus are Bisnaga Orcutt and Parrycactus Doweld .

literature

  • Nigel P. Taylor: A review of Ferocactus Britton & Rose . In: Bradleya . Volume 2, 1984, pp. 19-38.
  • Gottfried Unger: The big ball cacti of North America . Self-published, Graz 1992, ISBN 3-950016201 .
  • George E. Lindsay: The genus Ferocactus. Taxonomy and ecology, explorations in the USA and Mexico . Tireless Termite Press 1996, ISBN 0-9654359-0-3 .
  • Franziska Wolf & Richard Wolf: The ferocacti of Baja California . Self-published, Sulz / Wienerwald 2004.
  • John Pilbeam, Derek Bowdery: Ferocactus . The British Cactus and Succulent Society, 2005, ISBN 0-902099-76-0 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ NL Britton , JN Rose : The Cactaceae . Descriptions and Illustrations of Plants of the Cactus Family . tape III . The Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington 1922, p. 123 ( online ).
  2. ^ Edward F. Anderson : The great cactus lexicon . Eugen Ulmer KG, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-8001-4573-1 , p. 289-298 .

further reading

  • JH Cota, RS Wallace: Chloroplast DNA evidence for divergence in Ferocactus and its relationships to North American columnar cacti (Cactaceae: Cactoideae) . In: Systematic Botany . Volume 22, 1997, pp. 529-542, PDF .
  • JH Cota, JP Rebman, RS Wallace: Chromosome numbers in Ferocactus (Cactaceae: Cactoideae) . In: Cytologia . Volume 61, 1996, pp. 431-437, PDF .

Web links

Commons : Ferocactus  - collection of images, videos and audio files