Melocactus

Accepted species 53 Documented here 15 Family Cactaceae

Accepted species 53 in this genus

Every accepted species in the genus is listed. A name links to its page when we hold at least three commercially licensed photographs of it. Where we do not, the row shows how many we actually found, which is usually none.

SpeciesAuthority Usable photographsPage
Melocactus intortus (Mill.) Urb. 64 documented
Melocactus harlowii (Britton & Rose) Vaupel 58 documented
Melocactus curvispinus Pfeiff. 51 documented
Melocactus macracanthos (Salm-Dyck) Link & Otto 22 documented
Melocactus peruvianus Vaupel 14 documented
Melocactus holguinensis Areces 12 documented
Melocactus matanzanus León 12 documented
Melocactus zehntneri (Britton & Rose) Luetzelb. 9 documented
Melocactus nagyi Z.Mészáros 7 documented
Melocactus ernestii Vaupel 6 documented
Melocactus pedernalensis M.M.Mejía & R.G.García 6 documented
Melocactus pachyacanthus Buining & Brederoo 5 documented
Melocactus lemairei (Monv. ex Lem.) Miq. ex Lem. 4 documented
Melocactus neryi K.Schum. 3 documented
Melocactus santiagoensis D.Barrios & Majure 3 documented
Melocactus caroli-linnaei N.P.Taylor 2 below the evidence gate
Melocactus schatzlii W.Till & R.Gruber 1 below the evidence gate
Melocactus smithii (Alexander) Buining ex G.D.Rowley 1 below the evidence gate
Melocactus × albicephalus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus × bozsingianus Antesberger 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus × horridus Werderm. 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus acispinosus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus acunae León 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus amethystinus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus andinus R.Gruber ex N.P.Taylor 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus azureus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus bahiensis (Britton & Rose) Luetzelb. 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus bellavistensis Rauh & Backeb. 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus brederooanus Buining 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus broadwayi (Britton & Rose) A.Berger 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus concinnus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus conoideus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus deinacanthus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus estevesii P.J.Braun 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus evae Z.Mészáros 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus ferreophilus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus glaucescens Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus inconcinnus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus lagunaensis (Z.Mészáros) D.Barrios & Majure 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus lanssensianus P.J.Braun 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus levitestatus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus longicarpus Buining & Brederoo 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus mazelianus Říha 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus natalensis (P.J.Braun & Esteves) N.P.Taylor 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus oreas Miq. 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus paucispinus Heimen & R.Raul 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus perezassoi Areces 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus praerupticola Areces 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus radoczii Z.Mészáros 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus salvadorensis Werderm. 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus sergipensis N.P.Taylor & Meiado 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus stramineus Suringar 0 below the evidence gate
Melocactus violaceus Pfeiff. 0 below the evidence gate

Why some species have no pagethe gate

This site is commercial, so it can only publish photographs licensed for commercial use. Roughly three quarters of the photographs on iNaturalist are CC BY-NC, which excludes them. A species needs at least three usable photographs before we will build it a page, because a page with one picture and no traits tells you nothing you could not get from a search result, and generating hundreds of thousands of those is precisely the practice that got the previous version of this site deleted.

So the species above without a link are not errors and they are not omissions. They are real, accepted plants that we cannot yet document to the standard we hold ourselves to, and the count in the photographs column is exactly how far short we fall.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. Accepted names, authorities, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. Photograph counts, restricted to CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA. Retrieved 2026-06-27.