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Homalocephala polycephala, the cotton top cactus, is a clustering barrel cactus from the Mojave and Sonoran deserts that forms clumps of up to 30 stems. It needs full sun, very sharp drainage and little water, and is best grown outdoors or in a large, gritty pot.
Homalocephala polycephala, synonym Echinocactus polycephalus, is a cactus that is native to the United States and Mexico.
It occurs in the Mojave Desert region of Arizona, California, and Nevada, and also occurs in the Sonoran Desert region of southern California and northern Sonora, Mexico, growing on rocky hills and slopes at elevations between 30 and 750 meters. The plants grow in some of the most extreme arid environments in the American Southwest, such as Death Valley National Park, and the Mojave National Preserve of Southern California.
Cactus · Homalocephala parryi · Horse Crippler · Barrel Cactus
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Homalocephala polycephala 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.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
