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Pelecyphora vivipara
Also called Beehive Cactus, Pink Pincushion Cactus, Purple Ball Cactus, Spinystar Cactus
Pelecyphora vivipara is a species of cactus known by several common names, including spinystar, viviparous foxtail cactus, pincushion cactus and ball cactus. It is native to North America, where certain varieties can be found from Mexico to Canada. Most of these varieties are limited to the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts. The species epithet "vivipara" was likely a reference to the plants tendency to produce offsets, or "pups", which is known as vivipary.
The species has a broad range across the western interior of North America, from northern Mexico to the Canadian prairies. Its distribution in the early Holocene era is known to have differed locally from its present range. From pollen core data, a portion of the prehistoric distribution of this species has been mapped; for example in the Late Wisconsin period, Pelecyphora vivipara occurred in the Waterman Mountains (Coconino County) of northern Arizona, (the Waterman Mountains are in SE Arizona), although the species does not occur in this location in the present time.
Pelecyphora duncanii · Pelecyphora lloydii · Pelecyphora minima · Pelecyphora missouriensis · Pelecyphora sneedii · Pelecyphora tuberculosa · Pelecyphora zilziana · Pelecyphora abdita · Pelecyphora alversonii · Hatchet Cactus · Pelecyphora chihuahuensis · Pelecyphora chlorantha
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pelecyphora vivipara by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
