Plant Name
Scientific Name: Echinocereus rigidissimus
Common Names: Rainbow Hedgehog Cactus, Rainbow Cactus
Plant Characteristics
Duration: Perennial
Growth Habit: Shrub, Cactus
Arizona Native Status: Native
Habitat: Upland. It grows on dry, sunny, rocky slopes and in grassy areas.
Flower Color: Pink to magenta
Flowering Season: Summer
Height: To 8 inches (20 cm) tall
Description: The flowers are up to 3 inches (8 cm) wide and have a band of yellowish white at the base of the pink tepals. The stems are spiny, usually solitary, and green in color, but usually almost completely obscured by the dense spines. The spines are comblike, all radial (no projecting spines), and are held flat to the stems in rainbow-like alternating bands of pink and white.
The similar Rainbow Cactus (Echinocereus pectinatus) has a band of green below the white band at the base of the flower tepals.
Special Characteristics
Legal Status – Protected Native Plant (Salvage Restricted)
Classification
Kingdom: Plantae – Plants
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta – Vascular plants
Superdivision: Spermatophyta – Seed plants
Division: Magnoliophyta – Flowering plants
Class: Magnoliopsida – Dicotyledons
Subclass: Caryophyllidae
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Cactaceae – Cactus family
Genus: Echinocereus Engelm. – hedgehog cactus
Species: Echinocereus rigidissimus (Engelm.) hort ex F. Haage – rainbow hedgehog cactus
More About This Plant