WILDFLOWERS OF NEW MEXICO

Either solitary or clumped, this hedgehog cactus has rounded to cylindrical stems 2–10 inches tall (5–25 cm), 1 1/2–5 inches diameter (4–13 cm) with about 13 ribs with distinct tubercles or nipples. Note the long, lower central fishhook spine, and the rose or pink to purple, 1–2-inch wide flowers with purple to green stigma lobes. The NM RARE PLANTS website states: “Identification of species within the genus Sclerocactus has caused a great deal of confusion, and most species are confusingly alike.”

FLOWER: April–June. Flowers 1–2 1/4 inches wide (2.5–5.5 cm); petal-like tepals rose or pink to purple, each 1 1/4–2 1/2 inches long (3–6 cm); filaments purple, yellow or green; anthers yellow, stigma lobes purple or greenish. Fruit egg-shaped 3/8–1 inch long, green maturing reddish.

SPINES: Areoles have 4–6 centrals (from center dome), the lower dark and hooked, to 2 3/4 inches long (7 cm); upper central white and flat or angled; 2–4 shorter lateral spines, not hooked; 3–17 radial spines (from edge of areole), mostly white.

HABITAT: Sandy, gravelly, or clay soils, hills, mesas, and washes; desert grasslands, plateau brushlands, pinyon-juniper woodlands.

ELEVATION: 3,200–6,900 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CO, NM, UT.

SIMILAR SPECIES: Clover’s Fishhook Cactus, S. cloverae subsp. cloverae, in nw NM, has flowers to only 1–inch wide, 8 central spines with the lower one hooked, and only 4–6 radial spines (though counting spines is often unreliable when identifying these similar species). According to the NM RARE PLANTS website, the ranges of S. cloverae and S. parviflorus do not overlap.

NM COUNTIES: In the nw quarter of NM west of Farmington and Chaco Canyon in low- to mid-elevation, arid habitats: Bernalillo, Cibola, McKinley, Rio Arriba, San Juan, Sandoval, Socorro, Valencia.