Sandillon

Description

Eriosyce aurata is a species of plant in the genus Eriosyce of the cactus family (Cactaceae). The specific epithet aurata means gilded, woven with gold, colored with gold. A Spanish trivial name is "Sandillón". Eriosyce aurata grows solitary with green, almost spherical to spherical or sometimes elongated shoots and reaches diameters of 10 to 50 centimeters. Their crown is bare or slightly wooly. The roots are fibrous. There are between 24 and more than 42 ribs, which are indented between the areoles. The needle-like, upward-curving thorns are yellowish to horn-colored and later become greyish. The four to eight strongly curved central spines are 2.5 to 4.5 inches long. The twelve to 16 radial spines are 2.5 to 4 centimeters long. The funnel-shaped, yellow to reddish flowers appear from older areoles in a circle around the apex. They are 3 to 3.5 centimeters long and have a diameter of 2.2 centimeters. Their floral tube and pericarpel are entirely covered with dense white wool and some scales. The elongated fruits are covered with wool and some scales. They rupture with a basal pore. Eriosyce aurata is distributed in northern and central northern Chile from the Atacama region to Santiago and grows on the slopes of the Andes at altitudes of 300 to 2800 meters. The first description as Echinocactus auratus was in 1846 by Ludwig Georg Karl Pfeiffer. Curt Backeberg placed the species in the genus Eriosyce in 1936. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the species is listed as " Least Concern (LC) ". H. listed as not endangered.