Ferocactus uncinatus(Galeotti ex Pfeiff.) Britton & Rose

Chihuahuan fishhook cactus

WFO wfo-0000686379 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Ferocactus uncinatus, photographed by Alejandro Sigala Chávez
fig. a Alejandro Sigala Chávez, CC0 1.0 / 2021-09-18 / obs. 158292050

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 6 botanical countries

Regions where Ferocactus uncinatus is native: Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, New Mexico, Texas Mexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SouthwestNew MexicoTexas
Native distribution of Ferocactus uncinatus, 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 Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southwest MXS
New Mexico NWM
Texas TEX

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.

Flowering 52 in flower of 101 examined

Proportion of examined Ferocactus uncinatus in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 1 too few examined
Feb 5 6 83% 44% to 97%
Mar 36 43 84% 70% to 92%
Apr 10 27 37% 22% to 56%
May 0 9 0% 0% to 30%
Jun 1 5 20% 4% to 62%
Jul 0 5 0% 0% to 43%
Aug 0 2 too few examined
Sep 0 0 too few examined
Oct 0 2 too few examined
Nov 0 1 too few examined
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Ferocactus uncinatus observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 52 of 101 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 27 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.

  • Ancistrocactus uncinatus (Galeotti ex Pfeiff.) L.D.Benson
  • Ancistrocactus uncinatus subsp. wrightii (Engelm.) Doweld
  • Ancistrocactus uncinatus var. wrightii (Engelm.) L.D.Benson
  • Echinocactus ancylacanthus Monv. ex Labour.
  • Echinocactus uncinatus Galeotti ex Pfeiff.
  • Echinocactus uncinatus f. wrightii (Engelm.) Schelle
  • Echinocactus uncinatus var. wrightii Engelm.
  • Echinocactus wrightii (Engelm.) Small
  • Echinocactus wrightii J.M.Coult.
  • Echinomastus uncinatus (Galeotti ex Pfeiff.) F.M.Knuth
  • Echinomastus uncinatus var. wrightii (Engelm.) F.M.Knuth
  • Ferocactus uncinatus var. wrightii (Engelm.) N.P.Taylor
  • Glandulicactus uncinatus (Galeotti ex Pfeiff.) Backeb.
  • Glandulicactus uncinatus subsp. uncinatus
  • Glandulicactus uncinatus subsp. wrightii (Engelm.) U.Guzmán
  • Glandulicactus uncinatus var. wrightii (Engelm.) Backeb.
  • Glandulicactus wrightii (Engelm.) D.J.Ferguson
  • Hamatocactus uncinatus (Galeotti ex Pfeiff.) Buxb.
  • Hamatocactus uncinatus var. wrightii (Engelm.) Bravo
  • Hamatocactus wrightii (Engelm.) Orcutt
  • Pediocactus uncinatus (Galeotti ex Pfeiff.) Halda
  • Pediocactus uncinatus var. wrightii (Engelm.) Halda
  • Sclerocactus uncinatus (Galeotti ex Pfeiff.) N.P.Taylor
  • Sclerocactus uncinatus subsp. wrightii (Engelm.) N.P.Taylor

and 3 more.

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol GLUN. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.