This is surely one of the most peculiar cacti.
It blooms on and off during the summer.
 

Etymology:  The genus  name “Puna” derives from the indigenous word "Puna" that indicate the western region up to 4500 m that extends from the Peru, going throughout Bolivia to the Argentinean North. Delimited  at west by a costal chain of high volcanic picks and by the Cordillera mountainous chain to the east. The Argentinean Puna is the natural continuation of the Bolivian highland.
The species name "clavarioides" alludes to the individual stems being Clavaria-like and superficially resembling the fruiting bodies of the basidiomycete fungus genus Clavaria

Description: Small creeping cactus.
Stems: Short greyish to brownish. The typical form has distinctive conical segments with the growing centre at the widest flat end of the cone, but monstrous forms with cristate fan-shaped or branching finger-like stems are widely seen in cultivation.
Sometimes all three of these stem forms may be seen on a single plant. In the wild, P. clavarioides grows with just the tops of the stems exposed above ground.

Photo of conspecific taxa, varieties, forms and cultivars of Puna clavarioides.

• Puna clavarioides
• Puna clavarioides forma cristata

Scientific Name: Puna clavarioides (Pfeiffer) Kiesling 1982 
Published in: Hickenia 1 (55): 291 (1982)

Origin: P. clavarioides is the type species of the genus Puna, it is a high altitude cactus that came from the states of Mendoza and San Juan in Argentina.

Conservation status: Listed in CITES appendix 2.
 

Common Name: 

• Dead man's fingers
• Mushroom opuntia

Taxon synonyms: 

• Opuntia clavarioides Pfeiffer, Enum. Cact. 173 (1837)
• Cylindropuntia clavarioides (Pfeiffer) Knuth in Backeberg & Knuth, Kaktus-ABC 122 (1935)
• Clavarioidea clavarioides Kreuzinger in Werdermann, Fedde Repert. Sonder-Beihl. C. subt. 97 (1935) as synonym
• Clavarioidia clavarioides (Pfeiffer) Frîc & Schelle
• Austrocylindropuntia clavarioides (Pfeiffer) Backeberg, Cactac., Jahrb. Deutsch. Kakt.-Gesellsch. 1941 (2): 13 (1942)
• Maihueniopsis clavarioides (Pfeiffer) Anderson, Cact. & Succ. Journ. Amer. 71 (6): 325 (1999)
• Cereus clavarioides (Pfeiffer) Hort. ex Pfeiffer
• Cylindropuntia clavarioides (Pfeiffer) F.M. Knuth
• Opuntia clavarioides var. monstruosa Monville in Labouret, Monogr. Cactees 489 (1853)
• Opuntia clavarioides var. cristata Croucher, The Garden 13: 106-107, fig. (1878)
• Opuntia clavarioides var. fastigiata Mundt, Monatsschr. Kakteenk. 3 (2): 30 (1893)
• Opuntia clavarioides var. fasciata K.Schumann, Monatsschr. Kakteenk. 10 (10): 159 (1900)
• Opuntia ruiz-lealii Castellanos, Lilloa 9: 213 (1943)
• Austrocylindropuntia clavarioides var. ruiz-lealii (Castellanos) Backeberg, Die Cactaceae 1: 156 (1958)
• Opuntia clavarioides var. ruiz-lealii (Castellanos) Rowley, Nat. Cact. & Succ. Journ. 13 (2): 25 (1958)
• Cylindropuntia clavarioides var. ruiz-lealii (Castellanos) Krainz, Die Kakteen Lief. 33 (1966)