Cephalocereus scoparius(Poselg.) Britton & Rose

WFO wfo-0000594769 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Cephalocereus scoparius, photographed by Tereso Hernández Morales
fig. a Tereso Hernández Morales, CC BY 4.0 / 2014-06-16 / obs. 201903980
Cephalocereus scoparius, photographed by Tereso Hernández Morales
fig. b Tereso Hernández Morales, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201904460
Cephalocereus scoparius, photographed by Tereso Hernández Morales
fig. c Tereso Hernández Morales, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 10425829
Cephalocereus scoparius, photographed by Tereso Hernández Morales
fig. d Tereso Hernández Morales, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202717289
Cephalocereus scoparius, photographed by Tereso Hernández Morales
fig. e Tereso Hernández Morales, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201907707
Cephalocereus scoparius, photographed by Tereso Hernández Morales
fig. f Tereso Hernández Morales, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 10472107
Cephalocereus scoparius, photographed by Tereso Hernández Morales
fig. g Tereso Hernández Morales, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 10472111
Cephalocereus scoparius, photographed by Tereso Hernández Morales
fig. h Tereso Hernández Morales, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 10472104

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 2 botanical countries

Regions where Cephalocereus scoparius is native: Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest Mexico GulfMexico Southwest
Native distribution of Cephalocereus scoparius, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Mexico Gulf MXG NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Southwest MXS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 57 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 14.8 °C 16.6 °C 19.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 29.7 °C 32.8 °C 34.3 °C
Annual rainfall 1,136 mm 1,247 mm 1,308 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 35 mm 48 mm 87 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 57 research-grade observations of Cephalocereus scoparius that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 6 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Carnegiea scoparia (Poselg.) P.V.Heath
  • Cereus scoparius (Poselg.) A.Berger
  • Lemaireocereus setispinus E.Y.Dawson
  • Neobuxbaumia scoparia (Poselg.) Backeb.
  • Pilocereus scoparius Poselg.
  • Pilocereus sterkmanii K.Schum.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.