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Aztekium is a small genus of globular cacti from northeastern Mexico, with two species: A. ritteri, a tiny plant with white wool at its crown, and the larger A. hintonii, which grows only on gypsum. Key to growing them is very slow growth, bright light, and well-draining gritty soil.
The genus Aztekium contains two species of small globular cactus. Collected in 1929 by F. Ritter, in Rayones, Nuevo León, Mexico, this genus was thought to be monotypic (with Aztekium ritteri) until a second species (Aztekium hintonii) was identified by George S. Hinton, in Galeana, Nuevo León in 1991. A further possible species, Aztekium valdezii, was described in 2011, but is considered to be a synonym of A. ritteri.
These species grow extremely slowly, taking around two years to attain a diameter of 3 mm. They are usually propagated by seeds.
The plants contain the following compounds:
N-methyltyramine
This genus is found only in the states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas in Mexico. It was estimated that there were in the order of tens of millions of plants of A. hintonii, and at present most of its range is pristine. Though A. ritteri has been collected for decades and there has been destruction of its habitat, the number of plants in habitat is several million.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Aztekium by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
