Ariocarpus
| Ariocarpus | |
|---|---|
| File:Ariocarpus.jpg | |
| Kingdom | Plantae |
| Family | Cactaceae |
| Subfamily | Cactoideae |
| Tribe | Cacteae |
| SubTribe | |
| Genus | Ariocarpus |
| Species | |
| Notes | Taxonomy follows Joël Lodé (2015). |
Etymology
The name Ariocarpus means "Fruit of Aria". The genus was named so because of its analogy with the elongated fruits of Aria, the ancient Greek name for the cork oak (not the mountain ash or rowan tree, as often reported in the literature).
Description
Ariocarpus is a genus of compact, solitary plants, or growing in small clumps. They are geophytic, having a tap root and curious geometrical tubercles, without ribs and without spines. The areoles are strongly woolly near the apex.
Flowers are diurnal, self-sterile, and shortly funnel-shaped. They are variable in colours: white, yellow or pink to magenta. Pollination is carried out by insects. Fruits are naked, fleshy, white to pink, and dry when ripe. Seeds are tuberculate, pyriform (pear-shaped), and black.
Habitat
The genus grows in a very scattered habitat, adapted to arid areas with low vegetation cover (matorral scrub, chaparral). Plants often grow in full sun or in the shade of shrubs, mostly completely buried in the ground. They are frequently found in cracks of rocks where they capture moisture, on hills, limestone mounds, or terraces (pH 7-8), as well as schistose (shale), sandy, muddy, gravelly, or rocky alluvial plains. It is a very mimetic genus, becoming almost invisible in its environment.
Altitude range: approximately 50–2200 m.
Distribution
- Mexico (Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, Nuevo León, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas)
- USA (Texas)
Species
The genus includes the following recognized species and subspecies:
- Ariocarpus agavoides
- Ariocarpus bravoanus
- Ariocarpus bravoanus subsp. hintonii
- Ariocarpus fissuratus
- Ariocarpus kotschoubeyanus
- Ariocarpus retusus
- Ariocarpus scaphirostris
- Ariocarpus trigonus
Notes
- Ariocarpus is a monophyletic genus that includes Neogomesia and Roseocactus.
- Passive struggle against herbivores is achieved through a corneal surface and the presence of alkaloids, as the plants lack spines.
- There have been various taxonomic interpretations; for example, Anderson (2001) recognized only 6 species, treating A. trigonus as a subspecies of A. retusus.
- In 1992, Hunt corrected the spelling of A. scapharostrus to A. scaphirostris.
- Phylogenetic studies have proposed clades like ATEP (Ariocarpus, Turbinicarpus, Epithelantha, Pediocactus) and ATES (Ariocarpus, Turbinicarpus, Epithelantha, Strombocactus), with the latter being considered more convincing.
