Custom Nomenclature Home Page for The New Cactus Lexicon
Learn more about the scope and reasoning behind this classification system.
The New Cactus Lexicon is intended to be a dictionary of the latest accepted taxonomy by a group of cactologists with various backgrounds. It is designed to be a succinct listing of the taxa with photographs of each listing.
The New Cactus Lexicon has divided the Cactaceae into 124 genera, 1438 species with 378 subspecies. The most notable change has occurred in the genus Opuntia where the number of taxa is only 75 compared to nearly 400 taxa by other sources. Many species have been subsumed into other species while others have been moved into a new genus altogether. On the species level, there seems to be nearly as much lumping going on as splitting.
Major consolidations on the genus level have occurred in Echinopsis, Rebutia, Parodia, and Mammillaria to the chagrin of many collectors.
By the authors' own admission, the work of the NCL is recognized as being more of the next step in cactus taxonomy and not claimed to be the final destination in this highly controversial study.
The New Cactus Lexicon is intended to be a dictionary of the latest accepted taxonomy by a group of cactologists with various backgrounds. It is designed to be a succinct listing of the taxa with photographs of each listing.