About Echinocereus coccineus subsp. santaritensis (W.Blum & Rutow) M.A.Baker
This subspecies of cactus is usually branched, and forms small mounds made up of around 30 stem clumps. These mounds can reach up to one meter in diameter. The light green plant bodies are egg-shaped to cylindrical, growing up to 40 centimeters tall, with a diameter between 2.5 and 5 centimeters. The plant has 11 to 14 ribs that often form warts. Its spines range in color from yellow to blackish red. It has 4 to 7 central spines (which may be entirely absent), with an angular cross-section and a maximum length of 7 centimeters; the central-most spine is often flattened. It also has 5 to 20 radial spines, which are round at the base and between 1 and 4 centimeters long. Flowering occurs from late spring to early summer. While blooms are commonly red, yellow, pink, purple or white, the broad, funnel-shaped orange-red blooms that are characteristic of this taxon appear below the shoot tip and are sometimes dioecious. These flowers measure 3 to 10 centimeters long, with a diameter of 2.5 to 8 centimeters. After flowering, it produces edible spherical fruits that turn red, and lose their thorns as they mature. The chromosome count for this taxon is 4n=22. Echinocereus coccineus (the parent species of this subspecies) is distributed across the southern United States states of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas, and ranges south through the Sonoran Desert to the Mexican states of Coahuila and Chihuahua, growing at elevations between 685 and 1775 meters.
