Another imposing and comprehensive specialty monograph (trigraph?) from Fritz Hochstaetter. This one is 380 pages, including 202 amazing pages of excellent color photography of the plants in habitat and cultivation, mostly in flower.
As in _The Genus Sclerocactus_, Hochstaetter incorporates a vast wealth of detail regarding these plants, including copies of the original publications, thorough descriptions of each species or subspecies, isoenzyme analysis by Monkia Konnert, seed morphology by Gunter Hentzschel, and a certain amount of distribution and cultivation information.
Also similar to _The Genus Sclerocactus_: some idiosyncratic taxonomical approaches and decisions. Two names are "corrected" in the Latin, Pediocactus "winkleri" changed to "winkleriorum" and Navajoa"fickeisenii" changed to "fickeiseniorum," since the discoverers were plural. I find this strange and unnecessarily distracting.
Perhaps more importantly, some advocacy for a high degree of taxonomic distinction is sure to cause dispute. Pediocactus simpsonii is broken down into 2 distinct species (simpsonii and nigrispinus, a distinction that seems valid IMO) with a total of 7 subspecies. In every case, the subspecies seem to me fairly weakly defined. As frustrating as it can be for me to see huge lists of supposed synonomy without any explanation of the rationale, it is equally strange to see lots of new names without an ironclad description of the reasons.
The most interesting thing for me in this book: the very thorough descriptions and illustrations of very obscure Pediocactus species like sileri, paradinei, knowltonii and the various forms of bradyi. I am also amazed by the number of illustrations of Navajoa peeblesianus and its forms. (Recent DNA analysis by Charles Butterworth does indeed seem to confirm Navajoa as a separate monophyletic group). There is no other source that I know of for so much information and so many images of these wonderful rarities.
The book, at $150, is an investment. But I'd highly recommend it to anyone interested in these most unusual of US cacti.
