The Pediocactus nigrispinus (neeg-re-spine-us) flowers are pink, magenta, yellow or yellow-green, and bloom briefly in mid-April in Grant County. Fruit is green tinged with red, but dries to reddish brown.  It has tiny seeds. Nigrispinus is controversial and shouldn't be mistaken for the Pediocactus simpsonii, according to Dixie Dringman of Rock Island.

On April 17 Dixie led her annual trek to see Pediocactus nigrispinus bloom. Twelve of us met at the gate leading to its habitat in public and private shrub steppe where Dixie has permission to tread.

One visitor was Jay Akerley from Vancouver, B.C, who wanted to view the plant in its native habitat. Akerley, who completed horticulture training at Glendale Gardens to compliment his BA in geography from Simon Fraser University, maintains both plants in a zeriscape garden near Princeton, Canada with more than 100 different species of cold hardy cacti. He’s published online photographs and articles. He said, “Oh yes, they are very different plants.”

So why is there a controversy, or as Dixie emailed me, “Who would have ever thought a …cactus could raise so much malcontent and snootiness?”

My search confirmed nigrispinus isn’t identified by some Washington agencies, including the Washington Native Plant Society. The WNPS does a wonderful job of plant education and protection, and collects plant lists shared voluntarily by observers around Washington. WNPS’ list for Grant County has 708 species compiled Don Knoke in 2004, but not nigrispinus. The only Pediocactus is the simpsonii. That’s probably nigrispinus.

The controversy stems from WNPS’ currently recommended field guide to identify plants by family and subspecies, the Flora of the Pacific Northwest by C. Leo Hitchcock and Arthur Cronquist, 1973. Hitchcock classified nigrispinus as a simpsonii.

Dixie says, “He never took the time to walk the basalt litho-soils in eastern Washington and see for himself that the two Pediocactus not only grew in completely different environments, but also were in fact completely different types. It remained for others to try to correct the wrongs but it has proved to be a difficult job.”

Dixie began relentlessly twenty years ago when she learned people were uprooting them and selling them in flea markets. She’s stopped those sales with the help of others, but not WNPS.

                She invited internationally recognized experts such as Fritz Hochstaetter and Bill Beaston whose fascination with the plant led to repeated visits. They convinced Dixie of the difference and they’ve collaborated since. “These experts all left convinced that the Pediocactus here were definitely NOT simpsonii or robustior.  Changes were made to the nomenclature to a …variant of robustior, … so things are at least moving in the right direction.”

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, Plants Data Base lists 26 Pediocactus, one of which is the Pediocactus simpsonii with variation of robustior. Akerley disagrees. “Nigrispinus is definitely not robustior, either.” 

The Washington Natural Heritage Program Plant Field Guide lists Pediocactus nigrispinus, the snowball cactus. Dixie says the snowball cactus is a Pediocactus simpsonii. At least nigrispinus is in one Washington document.

Akerley was thrilled with the trip. He picked up a dead nigrispinus with green tissue at its apex, already separated from its roots. His Facebook page says, “I found about 20 seeds. I grafted about 20 tubercle cuttings onto Opuntia fragilis [prickly pear] stock for my garden.”

Dringman revels in the controversy. Without a degree in botany, she’s been very successful. “I [have] become well known and [have] gained a reputation from my internationally published articles and actual fieldwork as an expert on Pediocactus nigrispinus by this time.”

And she's championed a beautiful small cactus being uprooted for resale and trampled under indifference because of ignorance. She has clear skies common sense and uncommon determination.