Species
+

Echinocereus fendleri (Engelm.) Sencke ex J.N.Haage

Fendler's hedgehog cactus, Fendler's needle-spine hedgehog, strawberry cactus

Climate known 24 photographs Cactus or succulent
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Echinocereus fendleri is a species of cactus known by the common names pinkflower hedgehog cactus and Fendler's hedgehog cactus. It is named in honor of Augustus Fendler.

Text from Wikipedia, “Echinocereus fendleri”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Echinocereus

Echinocereus is a genus of ribbed, usually small to medium-sized, cylindrical shaped cacti, comprising about 70 species native to the southern United States and Mexico in very sunny, rocky places. Usually the flowers are large and the fruit edible.

Text from Wikipedia, “Echinocereus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Cactaceae
Described by
(Engelm.) Sencke ex J.N.Haage
Native to
Colorado, Arizona, Utah +4
Wild records
1752 in range· 606 open

At a glance

Warmest month
32°C
Jun, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
350mm/yr
5 wet months · peak Aug 67 mm (CHELSA)
Light
21–52DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Echinocereus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, December to January and July to October in the northern hemisphere (December to January and July to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 350 mm a year, wettest August at 67 mm, driest April at 12 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 21 to 52 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -5.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Echinocereus fendleri (Engelm.) Sencke.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Echinocereus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, December to January and July to October in the northern hemisphere (December to January and July to October at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (247 mm of 350 mm) falls in December to January and July to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 16.0 °C against a yearly mean of 15.3 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: January to April and June to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 350 mm a year, wettest August at 67 mm, driest April at 12 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

350 mm a year at the habitat, 247 mm of it December to January and July to October. Wettest month August at 67 mm, driest April at 12 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 278 mm to 480 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 21 to 52 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 21 to 52 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 19, the highest 90th-percentile month 53).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -5.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -5.6 °C, the absolute minimum -16.1 °C, about 61 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells -6.5 °C to 2.1 °C), warmest day 31.7 °C in June (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -5.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 39 to 51% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 12 °C in Dec to 32 °C in Jun; mean night from -0 °C in Jan to 19 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 350 mm of rain a year, most in Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 443 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -16.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.3 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost35.3° 99th-percentile day (undated)-16.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100mm rainDLI 21–52RH 39–51 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 443 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C12 / 5–1615 / 8–1818 / 12–2223 / 17–2628 / 23–3132 / 28–3531 / 28–3430 / 26–3328 / 24–3123 / 18–2617 / 11–2012 / 5–16
Night °C-0 / -7–21 / -5–44 / -2–67 / 2–1012 / 7–1517 / 12–2019 / 14–2218 / 14–2115 / 11–1810 / 5–134 / -1–7-0 / -6–3
Rain mm20 / 12–3319 / 12–3019 / 8–2912 / 8–2314 / 6–3119 / 12–4063 / 43–9967 / 49–10041 / 30–5831 / 24–3820 / 14–2725 / 16–36
DLI23 / 22–2530 / 28–3139 / 37–4047 / 45–4851 / 49–5352 / 49–5347 / 44–4842 / 41–4339 / 37–3932 / 30–3325 / 23–2721 / 19–23
RH %50 / 48–5348 / 45–5245 / 41–4941 / 37–4539 / 35–4539 / 36–4548 / 45–5151 / 48–5448 / 46–5147 / 45–5047 / 45–5050 / 48–53

Each figure is the median across the 443 grid cells holding the 908 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1196:1437 (30.175, -108.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -16.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -5.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.3 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 443 distinct grid cells holding the 908 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1196:1437 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 30.00_-108.125, lapse-corrected -24 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1928 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeColorado, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest
Kew's description“succulent subshrub” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker31.904, -110.016 · in the densest population, 799 records (46% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1752 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 606 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 24 km away. 2 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 844 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1752 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Echinocereus fendleriEchinocereus fendleriEchinocereus fendleriEchinocereus fendleriEchinocereus fendleriEchinocereus fendleriEchinocereus fendleriEchinocereus fendleri

Photographs: CK2AZ, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (5); Anders Hastings, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Daniel, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF; Cecelia Alexander, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF.

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Echinocereus fendleri, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Macro- and Micro-Habitat Characteristics Of Kuenzler'S Hedgehog Cactus, Echinocereus fendleri VAR Kuenzleri
Ben C. May, David B. Wester, Carlton M. Britton, Ty Bryson (2008) · Haseltonia
Effects of Prescribed Fire on Kuenzler's Hedgehog Cactus (Echinocereus fendleri var. kuenzleri)
David B. Wester, Sandra Rideout–Hanzak, Carlton M. Britton, Benjamin C. May (2019) · Natural Areas Journal
EFFECTS OF FIRE ON KUENZLER’S HEDGEHOG CACTUS (ECHINOCEREUS FENDLERI VAR. KUENZLERI)
David B. Wester, Colton M. Britton (2007) · Lincoln (University of Nebraska)
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Echinocereus 69 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 24 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: filled 2026-09-20
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 21 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.