WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Deep seated, low growing, and flat-topped to rounded stems, 2–4-inches tall and 6–12 inches wide, form clumps or clusters. Note the nipples lining the stem are not connected by ridges and usually have 0–1 central spines; the yellow flowers bloom on or near the apex and the fruit mature red. The inconspicuous plants easily escape notice, especially in a grassy cover or in winter and drought when the stems shrink low into the soil.

FLOWER: April–June. Yellow to bronze-green flowers, 1–2-inches wide (25–50 mm), bloom from the new growth on the apex of the plant. Numerous slender, pointed, petal-like tepals often grade into a variety of shades or have pink midlines. Outer tepals are fringed, inner are not. The filaments are whitish or yellow to light-green, and the much longer style is green or yellow with 4–7 lobes. Oval fruit, 3/8–3/4-inch long (10–20 mm), forms between the nipples and stays green all winter until eventually turning bright red.

SPINES: Areoles on the 1/2-inch long (12 mm) nipples (tubercles) are white-woolly when young, have a lateral groove from the spines to the stem, with no central spines (or only 1); 10–17 radial spines, 3/8–1/2-inch long (8–14 mm), straight, spreading, white to brown-tipped, aging grayish.

HABITAT: Rocky, sandy soils of hills, usually in pinyon-juniper woodlands.

ELEVATION: 6,000–7,500 feet.

RANGE: Widespread north from AZ and TX to Canada.

SIMILAR SPECIES: One species (or not) with many names–variously classified in 5 genera as three different species and 5 varieties. Beehive Cactus, C. vivipara, has magenta flowers and green fruit. The confusing Coryphantha complex now includes Escobaria species (Powell) and is distinguished from Mammallaria by having a grove down the nipple, and flowers at the plant apex, not in a circle around the apex.

NM COUNTIES: Northwestern NM in mid-elevation habitats: McKinley, Rio Arriba, San Juan, Sandoval, Valencia.