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.
Common Name: BEEHIVE CACTUS Habit: Generally erect, not branched, or if branched then forming low +- 50 cm diam clumps with up to 12[200] branches. Stem: not segmented; 2--15 cm, 2--15 cm diam, spheric, ovoid, or cylindric, soft-fleshy to firm, ribs 0, tubercles conic to cylindric, grooved along distal surface from base (axil) to spine cluster at tip. Spines: 3--95 per areole, < 1 mm diam, needle-like, smooth, straight [curved or hooked]; central spines 3--12. Flower: +- at stem tip, in axil of tubercle; 6--37[100] mm diam; perianth +- yellow-green to rose-pink or +- purple; ovary glabrous, spines 0, scales generally 0--few, fringed [entire]. Fruit: indehiscent, broadly ellipsoid to narrowly obovoid, spineless. Seed: 1.3--2.3 mm, reniform, pitted, black or brown. Etymology: (Rómulo & Numa Escobar, Mexico) Note:Escobaria_in the strict sense represents a distinct lineage from Coryphantha in the strict sense (western United States, Mexico) and Pelecyphora (Mexico) (Chincoya et al. 2023) and warrants generic recognition. eFlora Treatment Author: Bruce D. Parfitt & Lucas C. Majure Reference: Taylor 1986 Cact Succ J Gr Brit 4:36--44; Chincoya et al. 2023 Biology 12:512.
Escobaria alversonii (J.M. Coult.) N.P. Taylor
NATIVE Habit: Occasionally +- decumbent. Stem: generally 1, sometimes 2--10 or more, 10--27 cm, 6--9 cm diam, cylindric. Spines: per areole 8--10 centrally, 12--18 radially. Flower: +- 3 cm diam, inner perianth widely spreading, pale to deep rose-pink or rose-violet, midstripe conspicuously darker; stigma lobes widely spreading, white. Chromosomes: 2n=22. Ecology: Sandy or rocky alluvium, creosote-bush scrub; Elevation: 75--600 m. Bioregional Distribution: s DMoj, DSon. Flowering Time: May--Jun Note: Threatened by collecting. Synonyms: Coryphantha alversonii (J.M. Coult.) Orcutt; Coryphantha vivipara (Nutt.) Britton & Rose var. alversonii (J.M. Coult.) L.D. Benson; Escobaria vivipara (Nutt.) Buxb. var. alversonii (J.M. Coult.) D.R. Hunt; Mammillaria alversonii (J.M. Coult.) Zeiss.; Pelecyphora alversonii (J.M. Coult.) D. Aquino & Dan. Sánchez Jepson eFlora Author: Bruce D. Parfitt & Lucas C. Majure Reference: Taylor 1986 Cact Succ J Gr Brit 4:36--44; Chincoya et al. 2023 Biology 12:512. Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange) Listed on CNPS Rare Plant Inventory Previous taxon: Escobaria Next taxon: Escobaria chlorantha
Botanical illustration including Escobaria alversonii
Citation for this treatment: Bruce D. Parfitt & Lucas C. Majure 2023, Escobaria alversonii, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, Revision 12, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=25220, accessed on February 08, 2025.
Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2025, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on February 08, 2025.
No expert verified images found for Escobaria alversonii.
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Duplicates counted once; synonyms included.
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