Xerophyte

Description

Melocactus diamantinus (or diamantineus) is an hoticultural name used to indicate one of the innumerable local form of the very variable Melocactus ernestiiSN|2264]]SN|2264]] with extremely beautiful and very long red spines and large white woolly areoles.

Note

The most remarkable part of a Melocactus is its cephalium a bristle-coated structure on the summit of the plant, only Melocactus, and the similar genus Discocactus possesses this type of permanent, apical, hat-like appendage. It’s only when a Melocactus reaches maturity that the cephalium begins to grow. Cylindrical, with a diameter distinctly smaller than that of the plant body below, the cephalium will keep growing for the rest of the plant’s life, but the body of the plant stops growing the moment the cephalium starts to form. As the plants age the cephalium doesn’t increase in circumference it will steadily grow taller.

Stem

Globose, up to 15 cm in diameter with 10 to 12 ribs and a cephalium with many brown bristles.