All the information and photos in cactus art files are now available also in the new the Enciclopedia of Cacti. We hope you find this new site informative and useful.

Areoles with fox-red glochids and white felt .
White blooms with a greener throat.
 

Morphology (Identifying Characteristics): Small clumping segmented succulent, In cultivation grows as a small erect segment chains. In habitat the plants stay smaller because the uppermost segments are detachable and drop easily.
Areoles : Very ornamental with bright yellow-brown glochids and white felt.
Spines: Spineless.
Flower: Dirty white or very pale pink a little hyaline with a green centre and green filaments. Pericarp is comparatively small and has areoles furnished with bristle-like spines as strong as the one on the young shoots.

Photo of conspecific taxa, varieties, forms and cultivars of Tephrocactus molinensis:Description: This is a small soft-skinned succulent mesemb much like a Pleiospilos. Tanquana hilmarii is the smallest species of the genus. In its native habitat it tends to remain unmbranched but often clusters in cultivation.
Body: Small, up to 35 mm (or more in cultivation) smooth soft to the touch which are not at all lumpy or rock like as in pleiospilos, brown-purplish to green-grey, dots all over, leaves are ovoidal- clavate (triangular with fat rounded tips) and never keeled.
Flower: Solitary, diurnal, yellow 25-35 mm wide producing a strong spicy scent.
Blooming season: Autumn, flowers opens in the afternoon and close at night.
Fruit: Capsule 10-locular with covering membranes and small closing bodies, and similar to those of Titanops hence the extraction of this genus from Pleiospilos.

• Tephrocactus molinensis
• Tephrocactus molinensis "red glochids"

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Habitat: Grows a open area among wide spread Trichocereus pasacana.
Notes: At the end of the dry season the cladodes  are very dehidrated and plants retract almost at soil level.

Type: Exsiccata: “Opuntia schumannii-Tephrocactus molinensis” (LPS 14335). Lectotype designated by Kiesling (1984a: 230, as type). Corp.
Basionym: Opuntia molinensis Spegazini.  Published in: Anales Soc. Ci. Argent. 96: 63. 1923,
nom. nov.  prop. Opuntia schumannii  Speg. in Anales Mus. Nac. Buenos Aires 11  (ser. 3, 4): 511. 1905, nom illeg. (non F. A. C. Weber).
Protologue: “Hab. Semel abunde prope Molinos, Prov. Salta”. Photographs: LP: without data. Later, Spegazzini (1925: 102) published this photograph, although  he did not mention if it corresponds to the type.
Obs.: Spegazzini (1923) created a new name: “Opuntia molinensis Speg. (nom. nov.) = O. Schumanni Speg. (non Web.), Cactacearum platensium tentamen, nº 106”, since the name Opuntia schumanni was already created by Weber in 1904.

Etymology: The genus name "Tephrocactus" derives from the Greek adjective “tephros (τεφρος)” meaning “ash coloured” plus the connective vowel “o” used in botanical Latin for Greek words , and the word “cactus” (an old genus name) (The genus name implies: “ash coloured cactus”). The species name "molinensis" comes from "Los Molinos", name of the original location from which the species is native.

Synonyms:

• Opuntia glomerata andicola
• Opuntia molinensis
• Maihueniopsis molinensis]

A plant during the winter resting period.

All the information and photos in cactus art files are now available also in the new the Enciclopedia of Cacti. We hope you find this new site informative and useful.