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Vascular Plants of California
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Ferocactus
BARREL CACTUS

Higher Taxonomy
Family: CactaceaeView DescriptionDichotomous Key

Common Name: CACTUS FAMILY
Habit: Perennial herb, shrub, tree, generally fleshy. Stem: cylindric to spheric, or flat; surface smooth, tubercled, or ribbed (grooved); nodal areoles bearing flowers. Leaf: generally 0 or early-deciduous, flat to +- cylindric. Spines: areoles generally with central, radial spines, occasionally with glochids. Flower: generally 1 per areole, bisexual [unisexual], sessile, radial [bilateral]; perianth parts generally many [5], scale-like to petal-like; stamens many; ovary inferior [superior], style 1, stigma lobes generally several [many]. Fruit: dry to fleshy or juicy, indehiscent to variously dehiscent, spiny, scaly, or naked; tubercled or smooth. Seed: generally many, occasionally 0--few.
Genera In Family: +- 125 genera, +- 1800 species: America (especially deserts), Africa; many cultivated, some edible. Note: Spines smaller, fewer (0) in shade forms; yellow spines blacken in age. Introduced species increasingly escape cultivation. Hybridization common in some genera.
eFlora Treatment Author: Bruce D. Parfitt, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Bruce D. Parfitt, Douglas H. Goldman, Bruce G. Baldwin, Thomas J. Rosatti.
Ferocactus
Habit: Erect or leaning, branches 0, occasionally branched from tip-injury. Stem: (0)10--200(300) cm, 10--35 cm diam, depressed-spheric to short-columnar, hard, glabrous, not segmented; ribs 13--31, prominent; tubercles not conspicuous on ribs. Spines: [6]10--32 per areole, 2--4.5 mm wide, generally awl-shaped, generally flat, ringed with conspicuous ridges, straight to curved or +- hooked, some bristle-like; central spines generally 4 per areole. Flower: +- terminal, near distal edge of spine cluster, 3--6 cm diam; perianth yellow to red [or purple, or white with +- purple midstripes]; ovary glabrous, spines 0, scales numerous, generally rounded, margins minutely fringed or toothed. Fruit: spheric, ovoid, or cylindric, glabrous, spineless, dehiscent by basal pore. Seed: [1]1.5--3 mm, spheric to subreniform, pitted, black.
Species In Genus: 25 species: southwestern United States, Mexico. Etymology: (Latin: fierce cactus)
Jepson eFlora Author: Bruce D. Parfitt
Reference: Taylor 1984 Bradleya 2:19--38
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)
Key to Ferocactus

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Next taxon: Ferocactus cylindraceus

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Citation for this treatment: Bruce D. Parfitt 2012, Ferocactus, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=10633, accessed on May 14, 2024.

Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on May 14, 2024.