Species
+

Melocactus violaceus Pfeiff.

Turk's-cap cactus

Climate known 62 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

Melocactus violaceus is a species of plant in the family Cactaceae. It is endemic to Brazil. Its natural habitats are dry savanna and sandy shores. It is threatened by habitat loss.

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

About the genus · Melocactus

Melocactus, also known as the Turk's head cactus, Turk's cap cactus, or Pope's head cactus, is a genus of cactus with about 30–40 species. They are native to the Caribbean, western Mexico through Central America to northern South America, with some species along the Andes down to southern Peru, and a concentration of species in northeastern Brazil.

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

Family
Cactaceae
Described by
Pfeiff.
Native to
Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast
Wild records
304 in range· 154 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Feb, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1316mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 202 mm (CHELSA)
Light
26–41DLI
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 Melocactus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, March to August at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.9 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1316 mm a year, wettest June at 202 mm, driest November at 36 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 22.9 °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 Melocactus depressus Haw.; Melocactus melocactoides f. sanctaritii Rizzini.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Melocactus, 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 sharp rainy season, March to August at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.9 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

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

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (976 mm of 1316 mm) falls in March to August. The temperature curve is flat, 2.9 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; with a flat temperature curve there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 1316 mm a year, wettest June at 202 mm, driest November at 36 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1316 mm a year at the habitat, 976 mm of it March to August. Wettest month June at 202 mm, driest November at 36 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 830 mm to 1693 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern 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: 26 to 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 41 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 23, the highest 90th-percentile month 43).

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 22.9 °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 22.9 °C, the absolute minimum 22.1 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 30.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 21.4 °C in August (across the envelope cells 18.3 °C to 23.3 °C), warmest day 28.9 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 22.9 °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: 62 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

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 26 °C in Jul to 29 °C in Feb; mean night from 21 °C in Aug to 24 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jul to Sep, is the three months around the coldest night. 1316 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 82 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 22.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 30.3 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.15°20°25°30°35°30.3° 99th-percentile day (undated)22.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 26–41RH 62–65 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 82 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 °C29 / 28–3129 / 28–3129 / 28–3128 / 27–3027 / 25–2926 / 24–2726 / 24–2726 / 24–2727 / 25–2828 / 26–3028 / 26–3029 / 27–31
Night °C24 / 22–2524 / 22–2524 / 22–2524 / 22–2523 / 20–2522 / 19–2422 / 18–2321 / 18–2322 / 19–2423 / 20–2523 / 22–2524 / 22–25
Rain mm71 / 49–13183 / 54–110132 / 95–198183 / 79–235193 / 56–255202 / 46–255164 / 39–207102 / 28–14264 / 24–10344 / 14–12636 / 18–17542 / 28–159
DLI40 / 38–4240 / 38–4237 / 35–3933 / 30–3429 / 25–3326 / 23–3127 / 23–3231 / 28–3636 / 31–4040 / 36–4341 / 36–4340 / 38–42
RH %63 / 60–6663 / 61–6564 / 62–6665 / 64–6665 / 64–6665 / 63–6764 / 63–6663 / 62–6562 / 61–6462 / 60–6462 / 60–6562 / 60–66

Each figure is the median across the 82 grid cells holding the 103 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 2009:2869 (-10.475, -36.525). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 22.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 22.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 30.3 °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 82 distinct grid cells holding the 103 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2009:2869 (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 -10.50_-36.250, lapse-corrected -10 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 7 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.
NativeBrazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast
Kew's description“succulent subshrub” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-22.91, -42.306 · in the densest population, 183 records (60% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 304 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 154 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 746 km away. 2 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 201 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 304 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Melocactus violaceusMelocactus violaceusMelocactus violaceusMelocactus violaceusMelocactus violaceusMelocactus violaceusMelocactus violaceusMelocactus violaceus

Photographs: (c) lucas_rafaelle, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) vitordematos12, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (4); (c) Henrique Nogueira, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Lucas Kaminski, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

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

Saurocory in Melocactus violaceus (Cactaceae)
José Eugênio Côrtes Figueira, João Vasconcellos‐Neto, Maria Alice Amorim Garcia, Andréa Lúcia Teixeira de Souza (1994) · Biotropica
The effect of temperature on the germination of Melocactus violaceus Pfeiff. (Cactaceae), a threatened species in restinga sandy coastal plain of Brazil
Luiz Roberto Zamith Coelho Leal, Denise Dias da Cruz, Bárbara Trautman Richers (2013) · Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências
Double mutualism involving Melocactus (Cactaceae) and lizards in the Brazilian Caatinga: Another isolated case or is it an established interaction?
Alexsandro Bezerra‐Silva, Vanessa Gabrielle Nóbrega Gomes, Sinzinando Albuquerque‐Lima, Tarcila de Lima Nadia (2024) · Austral Ecology
First record of the Brazilian restinga lizard Tropidurus hygomi ingesting a fruit of Melocactus violaceus (Cactaceae)
Maria Aldenise Xavier, Eduardo José dos Reis Dias (2015) · Herpetology notes
New disjunct record of Melocactus violaceus in Ceará, north-eastern Brazil
Marcelo Oliveira Teles de Menezes, Nigel P. Taylor, Antônio Sérgio Farias Castro (2012) · Bradleya
Reintroduction of illegally extracted Melocactus violaceus (Cactaceae) in Brazil
Haissa de Abreu Caitano, Valquíria Ferreira Dutra, Rodrigo Theófilo Valadares, Luana Silva Braucks Calazans (2020) · Oryx
Do different cultivation environments influence the germination and initial growth of three threatened Brazilian cacti species?
Paulo Augusto Almeida Santos, Luciano Coutinho Silva, Ane Marcela das Chagas Mendonça, Geovane da Silva Dias (2020) · South African Journal of Botany
Morfometría y patrones de distribución de Melocactus violaceus subsp. margaritaceus (Cactaceae), en dos ecosistemas contrastantes brasileños
Mauricio Larios Ulloa, Marcos Vinícius Meiado, Sofía Loza Cornejo, Katiane Da Conceiҫão Santos (2019) · Acta Botanica Mexicana
Potencial adaptativo de Melocactus violaceus Pfeiff (Cactaceae) para solos argilosos
Maxlene Maria Fernandes, Jefferson Rodrigues Maciel (2023) · Hoehnea
Melocactus violaceus Pfeiff. (Cactaceae) growth rate and abundance in a sandy terrace of Atlantic Rain Forest (REBIO Guaribas, Paraíba, Brazil)
Niviane Ferreira Lafite, Cleber Ibraim Salimon (2020) · Pesquisa e Ensino em Ciências Exatas e da Natureza

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 Melocactus 39 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 answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
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 24 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.