Mammillaria pottsiiScheer ex Salm-Dyck

Pott's Nipple-cactusRattail Nipple Cactusrat-tail nipple cactus

WFO wfo-0001287102 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Mammillaria pottsii, photographed by Reid Hardin
fig. a Reid Hardin, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-15 / obs. 199871496
Mammillaria pottsii, photographed by Reid Hardin
fig. b Reid Hardin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199857707
Mammillaria pottsii, photographed by Reid Hardin
fig. c Reid Hardin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199858548
Mammillaria pottsii, photographed by P Gonzalez Zamora
fig. d P Gonzalez Zamora, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 178911371
Mammillaria pottsii, photographed by Leticia Jiménez Hernández
fig. e Leticia Jiménez Hernández, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 145302060
Mammillaria pottsii, photographed by Leticia Jiménez Hernández
fig. f Leticia Jiménez Hernández, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 145300438
Mammillaria pottsii, photographed by Leticia Jiménez Hernández
fig. g Leticia Jiménez Hernández, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 145299121
Mammillaria pottsii, photographed by Francisco Martínez González
fig. h Francisco Martínez González, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 150348666

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 Mammillaria pottsii is native: Mexico Northeast, Texas Mexico NortheastTexas
Native distribution of Mammillaria pottsii, 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 Northeast MXE NORTHERN AMERICA
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.

Also published as 11 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 pottsii (Sheer ex Sheer) Kuntze
  • Chilita pottsii (Scheer ex Salm-Dyck) Orcutt
  • Coryphantha pottsiana (Poselg.) A.D.Zimmerman
  • Coryphantha pottsii (Scheer) Orcutt
  • Echinocactus pottsianus Poselg.
  • Krainzia pottsii (Scheer ex Salm-Dyck) Doweld
  • Leptocladia leona (Poselg.) Buxb.
  • Mammillaria leona Poselg.
  • Mammillaria pottsii var. gigas Repp.
  • Mammillaria pottsii var. multicaulis Repp.
  • Neomammillaria pottsii (Scheer ex Salm-Dyck) Britton & Rose

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. 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.