''Pelecyphora strobiliformis'' is a species of

cactus A cactus (: cacti, cactuses, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae (), a family of the order Caryophyllales comprising about 127 genera with some 1,750 known species. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, ...

from

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

., p. 561 Its numbers in the wild have been reduced by collecting; it is listed in Appendix I of

CITES CITES (shorter acronym for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of inte ...

(meaning that international trade is severely controlled) but only as of "

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

" by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

Description

''Pelecyphora strobiliformis'' grows with spherical or depressed spherical bodies that are 4 to 6 centimeters in diameter. The warts that lie on the surface overlap each other. They are slightly keeled and the outline is triangular. The warts are 8 to 12 millimeters long and 7 to 12 millimeters wide at their base. The 7 to 12 flexible, whitish, non-persistent spines are arranged somewhat comb-shaped at the tip of the wart and are 5 millimeters long. The magenta-colored flowers reach a diameter of 1.5 to 3 centimeters. The small fruits are hidden in the hair on the crown. When ripe, they dry out and eventually break down over time. File:Pelecyphora strobiliformis SB 1292 (Explore) - Flickr - Resenter1.jpg File:Pelecyphora strobiliformis 1.jpg

Distribution

Pelecyphora strobiliformis is widespread in the Mexican states of Nuevo León, Tamaulipas and San Luis Potosí in the Chihuahuan Desert at altitudes below 1600 meters.

Taxonomy

The first description as ''Ariocarpus strobiliformis'' was made in 1927 by Erich Werdermann. The specific epithet hintonii honors the Mexican farmer and plant collector George Sebastián Hinton (* 1949), who discovered the species. Alwin Berger described the monotypic genus ''Encephalocarpus'' for this species in 1929. Alberto Vojtěch Frič and Ernst Schelle placed them in the genus ''Pelecyphora ''in 1935.

References

External links

* * {{Taxonbar, from=Q149800 strobiliformis Cacti of Mexico Plants described in 1927