Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 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 2 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil South | BZS | SOUTHERN AMERICA |
| Uruguay | URU |
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 150 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 6.3 °C | 8.2 °C | 10.2 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 22.9 °C | 25.7 °C | 28.7 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,143 mm | 1,232 mm | 1,411 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 235 mm | 264 mm | 319 mm |
It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 150 research-grade observations of Parodia scopa 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 46 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 scopa Spreng.
- Cereus scopa Salm-Dyck ex DC.
- Echinocactus scopa Link & Otto
- Echinocactus scopa f. albicans (Arechav.) Schelle
- Echinocactus scopa f. candidus (Pfeiff.) Schelle
- Echinocactus scopa var. albicans Arechav.
- Echinocactus scopa var. candidus Pfeiff.
- Echinopsis scopa (Spreng.) Carrière
- Echinopsis scopa var. candida-cristata Carrière
- Malacocarpus scopa (Spreng.) Britton & Rose
- Notocactus glomeratus N.Gerloff
- Notocactus rudibuenekeri subsp. glomeratus (N.Gerloff) Doweld
- Notocactus rudibuenekeri var. glomeratus (N.Gerloff) N.Gerloff & Neduchal
- Notocactus scopa (Spreng.) Backeb.
- Notocactus scopa (Spreng.) A.Berger
- Notocactus scopa f. albicans (Arechav.) N.Gerloff & Neduchal
- Notocactus scopa f. candidus (Pfeiff.) Krainz
- Notocactus scopa f. cobrensis (N.Gerloff) N.Gerloff & Neduchal
- Notocactus scopa f. daenikerianus (Krainz) Krainz
- Notocactus scopa f. erythrinus Havlíček
- Notocactus scopa f. glauserianus (Krainz) Krainz
- Notocactus scopa f. machadoensis (W.R.Abraham) N.Gerloff & Neduchal
- Notocactus scopa f. marchesii (W.R.Abraham) N.Gerloff & Neduchal
- Notocactus scopa f. succineus (F.Ritter) N.Gerloff & Neduchal
and 22 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.