The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Pilosocereus alensis is a columnar cactus from western Mexico, grown for its long white hairs and night-blooming flowers. It needs full sun, very well-drained soil and infrequent watering.
Pilosocereus alensis, the Sonoran old man cactus, is a species of cactus native to Western Mexico, from Sonora south to Jalisco. The hairs protect the flower buds. Flowers open at night in June and give off the odor of ammonia, attracting bats for pollination.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Pilosocereus alensis 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.
