Sclerocactus mesae-verdae

Sclerocactus mesae-verdae, the Mesa Verde cactus or Mesa Verde fishhook cactus, is a small cactus native to northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado, known only from Montezuma County in Colorado and San Juan County in New Mexico. Much of the New Mexican range lies on Navajo Nation land, and the Colorado plants grow close to Mesa Verde National Park. It is an unbranched columnar cactus up to about 20 centimetres tall and 10 centimetres across, with 13 to 17 ribs, seven to fourteen radial spines at each areole and up to four central spines. The bell-shaped to trumpet-shaped flowers are white to yellow, some with purple stripes on the outer tepals, and the seeds are black. It grows on hilltops, benches and slopes in gravelly to loamy and clay soils. Over-collecting has hurt the species, and wild-collected plants usually die in cultivation. It has been listed as threatened in the United States since 1997, although in 2017 the IUCN assessed it as Least Concern.