Echinocereus viridiflorus, Rio Arriba County, NM, USA

no rights reserved · observed growing wild · 2018-04-23

Echinocereus viridiflorus Engelm.

Green Pitaya, Green-flower Hedgehog Cactus, Nylon Hedgehog Cactus, brown-flower hedgehog

Climate known 64 photographs Cactus or succulent

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 viridiflorus is a species of cactus known by the common names nylon hedgehog cactus, green pitaya, and small-flowered hedgehog cactus. It is native to the central and south-central United States and northern Mexico, where it can be found in varied habitat types, including desert scrub, woodlands, dry grasslands, and short-grass prairie.

Text from Wikipedia, “Echinocereus viridiflorus”, 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.

Native to

Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas +6

Wild records

1615 in range· 474 open

At a glance

Warmest month

29°C

Jul, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

423mm/yr

8 wet months · peak Aug 70 mm (CHELSA)

Light

18–48DLI

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, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 423 mm a year, wettest August at 70 mm, driest January at 14 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 18 to 48 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -16.3 °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 chloranthus Rümpler; Echinocereus viridiflorus var. davisiae Backeb.; Echinocereus viridiflorus var. viridiflorus.

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, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May 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 (303 mm of 423 mm) falls in May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 17.0 °C against a yearly mean of 9.6 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April.

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 423 mm a year, wettest August at 70 mm, driest January at 14 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

423 mm a year at the habitat, 303 mm of it May to October. Wettest month August at 70 mm, driest January at 14 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 325 mm to 522 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: 18 to 48 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 18 to 48 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 15, the highest 90th-percentile month 52).

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 -16.3 °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 -16.3 °C, the absolute minimum -27.3 °C, about 139 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 39.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -6.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells -11.1 °C to 0.9 °C), warmest day 28.5 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -16.3 °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: 48 to 52% 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 536 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	6 / 2–14	8 / 3–17	12 / 7–21	17 / 12–25	22 / 17–29	27 / 23–32	29 / 25–32	27 / 23–31	24 / 20–28	18 / 14–24	11 / 7–18	6 / 2–14
Night °C	-6 / -11–1	-5 / -10–3	-2 / -7–6	2 / -3–10	7 / 2–14	12 / 7–19	15 / 10–20	14 / 10–19	10 / 6–16	5 / 0–11	-2 / -6–5	-6 / -11–1
Rain mm	14 / 9–23	15 / 11–23	25 / 11–42	31 / 13–59	45 / 20–67	49 / 23–63	67 / 47–89	70 / 46–94	40 / 29–63	32 / 24–42	17 / 12–24	18 / 11–28
DLI	21 / 18–24	28 / 25–31	36 / 33–40	44 / 40–47	47 / 44–51	48 / 47–52	46 / 44–47	42 / 40–43	37 / 34–39	29 / 25–32	22 / 19–26	18 / 15–22
RH %	51 / 48–54	51 / 46–54	50 / 43–53	48 / 39–52	49 / 40–53	49 / 41–52	50 / 48–53	52 / 50–55	51 / 48–53	50 / 47–52	50 / 46–53	51 / 48–54

Each figure is the median across the 536 grid cells holding the 1353 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 991:1570 (40.425, -101.475). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -27.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -16.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 39.6 °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 536 distinct grid cells holding the 1353 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 991:1570 (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 40.50_-101.250, lapse-corrected +5 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 953 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, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas

Kew's description“succulent subshrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker32.192, -106.59 · in the densest population, 1394 records (86% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1615 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 474 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 41 km away. 2 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 262 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 inside the densest 4° block of the 1615 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Jared Shorma, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) RJ Baltierra, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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 viridiflorus, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

The subdominant status of Echinocereus viridiflorus and Mammillaria vivipara in the shortgrass prairie: The role of temperature and water effects on gas exchange

Janis M. Green, George Williams (1982) · Oecologia

POLLINATION BIOLOGY AND CHEMOTAXONOMY OF THE ECHINOCEREUS VIRIDIFLORUS COMPLEX (CACTACEAE)

Edwin E. Leuck, John M. Miller (1982) · American Journal of Botany

Echinocereus viridiflorusVarViridiflorusMortality in Shortgrass Plains of Texas: Observations Following Wildfire and Drought

Sandra Rideout–Hanzak, David B. Wester, Gad Perry, Carlton M. Britton (2009) · Haseltonia

Biosystematic studies in the Echinocereus viridiflorus complex.

Edwin E. Leuck (1980) · SHAREOK (University of Oklahoma; Oklahoma State University; Central Oklahoma University)

Effects of a natural fire on a Kuenzler's hedgehog cactus ( Echinocereus fendleri var. kuenzleri ) and nylon hedgehog cactus ( Echinocereus viridiflorus ) population in Southeastern New Mexico

Robert C. Sivinski (2007)

Pollination Biology and Chemotaxonomy of the Echinocereus virdiflorus Complex (Cactaceae)

Edwin E. Leuck, John Miller (1982) · American Journal of Botany

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