Cochemiea phitauiana
A small clustering hooked-spine cactus from the Cape region at the southern tip of Baja California Sur, formerly placed in Mammillaria. It lives in open, sunny shrubland with a long dry spring and a short late-summer rainy season, so it wants hard light, a sharp mineral mix and a dry, mild winter.
Where it grows wild
Open plains and low hills with scattered small shrubs in the Cape region thornscrub, sometimes on limestone, growing alongside Mammillaria petrophila and Ferocactus townsendianus. Plants sit in full sun or in the light shade of a nurse shrub.
Records span 10–1,867 m with a median of 530 m; the published range is about 90–900 m, so most plants grow in the lowlands and foothills.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY 4.0 licence, unmodified.