Xerophyte

Habit

It is a solitary perennial stem succulent with determinate growth in which the axis does not continue to elongate indefinitely being limited by the development of the flower bearing cephalium.

Description

Melocactus ernestiiSN|2264]]SN|2264]] var. multiceps is one of the innumerable local form of the very variable Melocactus ernestiiSN|2264]]SN|2264]] which distinguishes for the stout brown spines, and for the presence in habitat both of normal vegetative growth and mutant plant with cristate cephalia, multiple cephalia (up 7 cephalia on a single plant) and crested cephalia often divided into multiple crests.

Cephalium

Cap-like, globose to shortly cylindrical often cichotomicously branched or crested, covered by tightly packed areoles that bear wool and reddish bristles

Flowers

Small, light to dark pinkish magenta, 17-30 mm long, 7-18 mm in diameter, similar in form to Mammillaria flowers. They do not emerge fully from the cephalium.

Blooming Season

The flowers arise annually in mid summer from the cephalium in a ring. The flowers are diurnal and opens for a few hours at about lunchtime.

Spines

Stout, reddish or brownish, becoming grey with age on old mature specimens.

Ribs

up to 13.

Stem

Spherical to depressed conical to ellipsoid to short cylindrical, distinctly mucilaginous, up to 25 cm high, and 22cm in diameter. When the plant has reached a certain age it shows at the growing tip a cephalium (the structure, where the flower buds will form.

Fruits

Clavate berry, often somewhat flattened, especially near the tip,deep pink to crimson-red.

Areoles

Somewhat rounded to obtuse.