Echinocactus sect. Platypodium

Echinocactus sect. Platypodium Zucc. ex C.Hess

🌵 Author(s)	Christian Heß
🌵 Published in	Spezielle Pflanzenkunde 2: 461 (1846)
🌵 Type	not cited

Etymology

Greek platys ‘wide, broad’ + Greek podion ‘foot of a vase’ or Latin pŏdĭum ‘elevated place, height’. For Zuccarini’s observation that the flowers of Melocactus mammillariiformis (= Coryphantha retusa) “develop from the center of a disc-shaped, always flat cephalium” (Abh. Math.-Phys. Cl. Königl. Bayer. Akad. Wiss. 2(3): 667. 1837), which in Zuccarini’s view did not fit in any of the cactus genera recognized at the time. He suggested this name for a possible new genus based on this species.