Plate 1 figs. a–f · 6 separate observations
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 4 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Mexico Central | MXC | NORTHERN AMERICA |
| Mexico Gulf | MXG | |
| Mexico Northeast | MXE | |
| 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 130 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 3.8 °C | 6.6 °C | 10.9 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 23.4 °C | 27.0 °C | 30.4 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 436 mm | 543 mm | 694 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 23 mm | 31 mm | 45 mm |
It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 130 research-grade observations of Coryphantha cornifera 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 49 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.
- Cactus conifer (Haw.) Kuntze
- Cactus cornifer (DC.) Kuntze
- Cactus pfeifferianus (Vriese) Kuntze
- Cactus radians (DC.) Kuntze
- Cactus radians var. pectinoides J.M.Coult.
- Cactus scolymoides (Scheidw.) Kuntze
- Coryphantha bernalensis L.Bremer
- Coryphantha cornifera var. scolymoides (Scheidw.) Borg
- Coryphantha cornuta (Hildm.) A.Berger
- Coryphantha daimonoceras (Lem.) A.Berger
- Coryphantha daimonoceras Lem.
- Coryphantha impexicoma Lem. ex C.F.Först.
- Coryphantha maliterrarum L.Bremer
- Coryphantha radians (DC.) Britton & Rose
- Coryphantha radians var. impexicoma (Lem. ex C.F.Först.) Backeb. & F.M.Knuth
- Coryphantha radians var. pectinoides (J.M.Coult.) Bravo
- Coryphantha scolymoides (Scheidw.) A.Berger
- Echinocactus cornifer (DC.) Poselg.
- Echinocactus cornifer var. impexicomus (Lem.) Poselg.
- Echinocactus cornifer var. longisetus Poselg.
- Echinocactus cornifer var. muticus Poselg.
- Echinocactus cornifer var. nigricans Poselg.
- Echinocactus cornifer var. scolymoides (Scheidw.) Poselg.
- Echinocactus radicans (DC.) Poselg.
and 25 more.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- 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.