Melocactus cephalenoplus

Melocactus cephalenoplus Lem. (1840)

🌵 Author(s)	Charles Lemaire
🌵 Published in	Hort. Universel 2: 128 (1840)

Etymology

Greek kephalē ‘head’ + Greek enoplos ‘in arms’. For “the fact that in this plant the cephalium, when erect, is surrounded and protected at its base by long spines that exceed it in size by far compared to those of the stem bundles” (Lemaire). Misspelled cephalonoplus by Förster (Handb. Cacteenk. [Förster]: 279. 1846), who translated the name into German as Stachelköpfiger M[elonencactus] ‘spine-headed melon cactus’.

Note that the very similar generic name Cephalanoplos Neck. (Elem. Bot. (Necker) 1: 68. 1790; also spelled Cephalanoplus) for a thistle (Cirsium, Asteraceae) with “unarmed involucres” (“Perigynandæ […] inermes”) has the opposite meaning (Greek kephalē ‘head’ + Greek anoplos ‘unarmed’).