Origin and Habitat: Type locality: Plains of Coahuila, Mexico.
Distribution: Coahuila, Mexico.
Synonyms:
Common Names include:
SPANISH (Español): Viejo, Organillo
Description: Original desciption from: The Cactaceae (Brighton & Rose) Vol I, pag 215.1919 [21 Jun 1919]
Forming dense, often impenetrable thickets 2 meters high or less, very spiny; stems light green, 4 to 7 cm. thick, with 8 to 10 low, longitudinal, somewhat tuberculate ribs; areoles 1 to 1.5 cm. apart, 3 to 5 mm. in diameter; leaves linear, fleshy, green, 8 mm. long, early deciduous; spines 15 to 25, yellowish brown when young, soon becoming white, acicular, terete or slightly compressed, 1 to 3 cm. long, not sheathed, some of the longer ones reflexed; wool white, turning brown, early disappear ing; corolla rotate, opening in bright sunlight, 3 to 4 cm. broad; sepals ovate, acute, fleshy; petals bright yellow, spatulate, fringed; filaments brownish yellow; stigma-lobes 8, yellow; areoles of the ovary with long, yellow, weak spines, white wool, and yellow glochids; berry (according to Schumann) ellipsoid, deeply umbilicate; seeds not seen.
This species first appeared in print in the catalogue of Johannes Nicolai under the name of Grusonia cereiformis, but we are informed that there was no description and therefore it was not technically published. The same name next appears in the Monatsschrift für Kakteenkunde for 1894. Here Dr. Schumann wrote a long article about the name, especially condemning the loose manner in vogue of publishing new names without descriptions, but
giving no characters of the plant, and as a matter of fact he did not then know it. Two months later this name again appears in this same publication, but without description. Two years later Dr. Schumann records seeing this plant and describes it briefly, although he does not approve of the name Grusonia. If the name is to be considered published, it should not date earlier than this (December 1896), although Dalla Torre and Harms accept the date of 1894. In 1898 Weber transferred the name to Opuntia, publishing it as Opuntia cereiformis; in the meantime Coulter (in 1896) published the name Cereus bradtianus for the plant and Mrs. Brandegee (in 1897) transferred it to Opuntia, calling it Opuntia bradtiana.
Illustrations: Monatsschr. Kakteenk. 21: 121, as Opuntia bradtiana; Schumann, Gesamtb. Kakteen f. 101, as Opuntia cereiformis. Plate xxxiii, figure 4, represents a joint of the plant collected by C. A. Purpus at Cerro
de Cypriano, near Morano, Mexico, in 1910.
Bibliography: Major references and further lectures
1) Brighton & Rose "The Cactaceae" Vol I, pag 215.1919 [21 Jun 1919]
