Echinocereus is a genus of ribbed, usually small to medium-sized cylindrical cacti, comprising about 70 species native to the southern United States and Mexico which grow in very sunny rocky places. Usually the flowers are large and the fruit edible.
Among the variations of echinocereus is echinocereus triglochidiatus. Plants in the western portion of the range of Echinocereus triglochidiatus are known as echinocereus triglochidiatus var. mojavensis. These exist as curly-spined plants (mainly in California) and straight-spined plants (including most populations in Arizona, Utah, and western Colorado).
Echinocereus are bushy and globular with tight spines which are often colorful and decorative. The flowers last slightly longer than those of other cacti.
The common names given to the echinocereus mojavensis are Mojave kingcup cactus, Mojave hedgehog, Mojave mound cactus and mound hedgehog-cactus.
Echinocereus mojavensis often forms large clumps, more than a half a meter in diameter, with more than a hundred heads. Large mounds with 500 heads have been reported.
The stems are most often erect, densely packed, up to about 12 to 20 inches tall, each usually less than about two-and-a-half inches in diameter, and are bluish green.
The plants normally have about ten ribs and areoles that are a half inch to three-and-a-half inches apart, and somewhat woolly.
The plant is densely covered with spines. They are gray, flat, about two and a quarter inch long, curved or almost wavy, twisting, and often interlocking with those of neighboring stems to form a dense web of spines covering the mound. Central and radial spines are difficult to distinguish.
The plant’s inflorescence consists of solitary flowers emerging from near the tip of individual stems. Flowers are funnel-shaped; orange to red, and about two-and one-third inch to four inches in diameter.
Blooming takes place in spring.
Its fruit is cylindrical, about an inch-and-a-half long, and three-quarters of an inch in diameter, that is reddish when ripe, with deciduous spines. The white pulped fruit is juicy and edible. Fruiting occurs 60 to 75 days after flowering.
This cactus is widely cultivated for its flowers. It is among the easiest species to grow, flower and propagate, but does best in a light soil, a sunny exposure, and a mostly dry winter, in which circumstance it will flower abundantly. They like a soil slightly richer than other cacti. In the wild, several of the species are cold-hardy, tolerating temperatures as low as -04° Fahrenheit, but only in dry conditions.
These plants proliferate in the chaparral communities of the Mojave Desert. It is a fairly common component of vegetation communities on dry, well-drained gravelly and rocky soils on upper bajadas and slopes into the mountains in the Upper Sonoran (pinyon-juniper woodland), Transition (yellow pine forest), and Canadian (pine-fir forest) life zones. Sometimes the plants grow in sand-stuffed rock cracks. Such plants are small, and only have several stems. The plants growing by shady rocks and bushes look much stronger.
Ideal locations for them are in elevations between 4,500 and 9,000 feet.
The name comes from the Ancient Greek ἐχῖνος (echinos), meaning “hedgehog,” and the Latin cereus meaning “candle.” They are sometimes known as hedgehog cacti, a term also used for the Pediocactus and Echinopsis
From Wikipedia, CactiGuide.com and cactus-art.biz