Autor: Backeberg
• ETYMOLOGY
Cactus with glands, because plants in the genus have nectariferous glands.
• DESCRIPTION
A genus of usually solitary plants (except when the apex has been damaged), globose to cylindrical, with bluish-green
epidermis, with fusiform (spindle-shaped) roots. Ribs strongly tuberculate, wavy and furrowed. Central spine hooked, often very long.
Flowers diurnal, borne on the areolar groove, funnel-shaped, brown red to almost black, pollinated by insects. Fruits egg-shaped, juicy, indehiscent, green to reddish. Seeds comma-shaped, brown, rough, shiny.
• HABITAT
The genus Glandulicactus grows between the southeast of United States and the northeast of Mexico, in the Chihuahan desert, especially on both sides of the Rio Grande, among grasses, usually at the foot and in the shade of xerophyllous shrubs, in arid regions, on well drained or rocky alluvial, limestone, sandy, gravelly soils, on hills, in crevices of cliffs, from 800 m up to 2300 m in altitude. However, these soils remain relatively humid after the sudden summer showers. The populations are usually rare and scattered, but have a wide distribution.
• DISTRIBUTION
Mexico (Chihuaha, Coahuila, Durango, Guanajuato, Nuevo Leon, Queretaro, San Luis Potosi, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Zacatecas), USA (New Mexico, Texas).
Currently 2 recognised species + one subspecies:
– Glandulicactus crassihamatus* (F.A.C.Weber) Backeb. 1940
– Glandulicactus uncinatus* (Galeotti) Backeb. 1939
– Glandulicactus uncinatus subsp. wrightii (Engelmann) U.Guzman 2003
References: "TAXONOMY of the CACTACEAE" - ISBN 978-84-617-3723-9 (Vol. 1)