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Description: F. stainesii is a simple or
clumping barrel/column cactus with thick red spines. In habitat plants
must be a great age, often forming into quite massive groups,
with several subsidiary barrels growing from the main one, with deep
green bodies densely covered with bright red spines up its entire
length. Most plants have bright red spines with bristlelike, white
radials—a wonderful contrast, but in some populations the white bristles
are occasionally absent. Such variation has led to establishment of
several names for this species.
Stem: Columnar deep green up to 2.4(-3) m tall and 30 t0 40 cm in
diameter, with several subsidiary barrels growing from the main one.
Ribs: 13-20, compressed, more or less ondulate.
Areoles: Distant to closely set and almost contiguous in older
specimens, circular.
Radial spines: Sometime absent or usually reduced to long white
or straw coloured hairs on the areoles that appears later with age.
Central
spines: Several, subulate-acicular, stright or slightly curved, more
or less flattened and angular at first bright red/purplish becoming dull
yellow with age, but some populations also boast
yellow-spined individuals, and the white bristles are occasionally
absent.
Flowers: Yellow to red, about 2,5 cm long, scales on the ovary
numerose, orbicular, imbricated, inner perianth segment oblanceolate,
obtuse or apiculate.
Fruit: Yellow, somewhat succulent, dehishing by basal pore, 3 to
4 cm long, crowned by persisting perianth.
Seeds:1,5 mm long, brownish, pitted with a small basal hilum.
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Cultivation
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