Thelocactus hexaedrophorus is a species of cactus. It is endemic to Mexico.
Thelocactus hexaedrophorus grows solitary, it is a spherical cactus, tall and in diameter, with a bluish, olive-green, or gray-green body. It has 8 to 13 ribs dissolved into warty, six-sided tubercles, long and wide. Areoles are long, spaced apart. The plant features 4 to 8 radial spines, long, in colors ranging from white to ocher, reddish, or brown, and a central spine long. Flowers are large, wide, ranging from white to pale pink. The fruits are green to magenta, in size, and dry when open.[1]
Thelocactus hexaedrophorus is endemic to the limestone slopes in the Chihuahuan Desert, savanna, and grasslands of San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, and Nuevo León, Mexico at elevations between 1100 and 2000 meters. Plants are found growing along with Mammillaria parkinsonii, Mammillaria aureilanata, Ariocarpus retusus, Turbinicarpus saueri subsp. knuthianus, Coryphantha maiz-tablasensis, Astrophytum myriostigma, Echinocactus platyacanthus, Echinocereus enneacanthus var. carnosus, Coryphantha cornifera, Ferocactus latispinus, Echinocereus pectinatus, Echinocereus cinerascens, Opuntia rastrera, Opuntia lindheimeri, Cylindropuntia imbricata, Myrtillocactus geometrizans, Polaskia chende, Agave salmiana, Yucca filifera, Jatropha dioica and Fritillaria affinis.[2]
The plant was first described as Echinocactus hexaedrophorus by Charles Lemaire in 1839,[3] and later placed in the genus Thelocactus by Britton and Rose in 1922.[4] The specific epithet hexaedrophorus is derived from the Greek words hexa- for 'six', hedra for 'level' and -phoros for 'bearing' and refers to hexagonal warts of the species.