Ricardo Olivo Rodríguez, CC BY-SA, iNaturalist via GBIF · observed growing wild

Mammillaria magnimamma Haw.

Mexican Pincushion, Mexican pincushion, Mexican pincushion cactus

Climate known 6 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

Mammillaria magnimamma, common name Mexican pincushion, is a species of flowering plant in the cactus family Cactaceae.

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

About the genus · Mammillaria

Mammillaria is one of the largest genera in the cactus family (Cactaceae), with currently about 170 to 190 accepted species and around 99 subspecies. Most of the mammillarias are native to Mexico, while some come from the Southwestern United States, the Caribbean, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras and Venezuela. The common name "pincushion cactus" refers to this genus and the closely related Escobaria.

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

Family

Cactaceae

Described by

Haw.

Native to

Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf +1

Wild records

1563 in range· 362 open

At a glance

Warmest month

27°C

May, mean day; nights 13 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

523mm/yr

7 wet months · peak Jul 100 mm (CHELSA)

Light

29–45DLI

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 Mammillaria, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to September in the northern hemisphere (May to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 523 mm a year, wettest July at 100 mm, driest December at 8 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 45 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -0.8 °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 Cactus bockii Kuntze; Cactus centricirrhus (Lem.) Kuntze; Cactus diadema Kuntze; Cactus divaricatus (A.Dietr.) Kuntze; Cactus divergens Kuntze and 45 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Mammillaria, 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 September in the northern hemisphere (May to September 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 (399 mm of 523 mm) falls in May to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 19.1 °C against a yearly mean of 17.0 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to March.

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 523 mm a year, wettest July at 100 mm, driest December at 8 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

523 mm a year at the habitat, 399 mm of it May to September. Wettest month July at 100 mm, driest December at 8 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 394 mm to 836 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: 29 to 45 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 45 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 25, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

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 -0.8 °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 -0.8 °C, the absolute minimum -7.7 °C, about 5 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 6.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells 4.6 °C to 9.9 °C), warmest day 26.9 °C in May (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -0.8 °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: 50 to 65% 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 590 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	20 / 18–22	22 / 20–24	25 / 22–27	27 / 23–29	27 / 22–29	25 / 21–28	23 / 20–26	24 / 20–27	22 / 19–25	22 / 19–24	22 / 18–24	21 / 18–22
Night °C	6 / 5–10	7 / 5–11	9 / 7–13	12 / 9–15	13 / 10–17	14 / 11–18	14 / 10–17	14 / 10–17	13 / 10–17	11 / 9–15	9 / 7–12	7 / 5–11
Rain mm	15 / 10–23	12 / 9–16	10 / 6–18	25 / 17–37	44 / 35–64	83 / 58–136	100 / 72–157	86 / 55–134	86 / 62–158	43 / 30–81	11 / 9–23	8 / 5–14
DLI	30 / 26–33	36 / 31–38	43 / 37–44	45 / 40–47	45 / 41–47	41 / 38–44	39 / 37–42	39 / 37–42	34 / 31–36	33 / 30–34	31 / 27–33	29 / 25–31
RH %	55 / 52–61	53 / 50–59	50 / 47–58	52 / 48–58	55 / 52–61	60 / 57–65	63 / 59–68	63 / 59–67	65 / 61–69	62 / 58–66	57 / 54–63	55 / 52–61

Each figure is the median across the 590 grid cells holding the 1457 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 1374:1602 (21.275, -99.875). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -7.7 °C, 1st-percentile night -0.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.4 °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 590 distinct grid cells holding the 1457 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1374:1602 (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 21.50_-100.000, lapse-corrected +367 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1936 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.

NativeMexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest

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

Map marker20.431, -99.378 · in the densest population, 1183 records (76% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1563 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 362 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 158 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 106 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 1563 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: J. Carlos Fonseca Mata, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Redes campesinas “La yunta", CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (2); Adrianh M. Orozco, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Alexis López Hernández, CC BY, 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 Mammillaria magnimamma, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Population dynamics of Mammillaria magnimamma Haworth. (Cactaceae) in a lava-field in central Mexico

Teresa Valverde, Sandra Quijas, Manuela López‐Villavicencio, Silvia Castillo (2004) · Plant Ecology

Respuesta germinativa y crecimiento de plántulas de Mammillaria magnimamma (Cactaceae) bajo diferentes condiciones ambientales

Marcela Ruedas, Teresa Valverde, Silvia Castillo‐Argüero (2000) · Botanical Sciences

Breeding system in a population of the globose cactus Mammillaria magnimamma at Valle del Mezquital, Mexico

Alicia Callejas‐Chavero, Carlos Fabián Vargas-Mendoza, Carlos Gómez-Hinostrosa, Víctor Javier Arriola Padilla (2021) · Botanical Sciences

Aislados de Bacillus provenientes de la rizósfera de cactus incrementan la germinación y la floración en Mammillaria spp. (Cactaceae)

Lluvia A. Chávez-Ambriz, Alejandro Hernández‐Morales, José Alejandro Cabrera-Luna, Laura Luna-Martínez (2016) · Revista Argentina de Microbiología

Mating system of a Mammillaria magnimamma (Cactaceae) population of the semi-arid central Mexican region

Alicia Callejas‐Chavero, Sonia Sánchez-Serano, Arturo Flores-Martínez, Amelia Cornejo‐Romero (2022) · Journal of Arid Environments

Patrón de distribución y abundancia de Mammillaria magnimamma en la reserva del Pedregal de San Angel, México D.F

María Teresa Valverde-Valdés, ML Trejo, Silvia Castillo‐Argüero (1999) · Cactaceas y suculentas mexicanas

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