Golden Barrel Cactus ​(Echinocactus grusonii)

Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo is home to many animals, and we also cultivate plants from those animals’ habitats. You may see some of these plants in the animals” habitats or you can see them in our Victorian Greenhouse. Many of the plants are endangered, just like the animals.

DESCRIPTION: Golden Barrel Cacti are slow-growing cacti with a spherical, usually solitary stem that becomes barrel-shaped with age. The stem is pale green and heavily ribbed with numerous areoles sprouting sharp radial spines. It grows up to 3.3 feet tall and is nearly equal in diameter. The spines are long, straight or slightly curved, in various shades of yellow or occasionally white. Flowers are diurnal, yellow, up to 2 inches in diameter, and appear in a ring at the top of the stem in summer but only on mature specimens (after 20 years or so) receiving enough full sun.

RANGE: Native to east-central Mexico.

Photo: World of Succulents