Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum Digital Library
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Scientific Name:
Fouquieria macdougalii English Name: Mexican tree ocotillo Spanish Name: ocotillo macho, torote verde, chunuli, torote espinosa, palo pitillo, jaboncillo, paloverde |
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View all images of Fouquieria macdougalii This species is present in the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum's live collection. |
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Fouquieriaceae (ocotillo family)
The ocotillo family is a small one of only 13 species restricted to the warm-arid section of North America. Members of this family are odd-looking plants, some even bizarre. They are characterized by spiny stems with bundles of seasonal leaves at each spine. A few species are stem succulents, the rest barely semisucculent. The fouquierias have a curious parallel with the Didiereaceae. The few species of this exclusively Madagascan family closely resemble some of the ocotillos in growth habit, differing from them in growing much larger and having succulent leaves. The didiereas are distantly related to the cacti and not at all to the ocotillos, so this is an example of convergent evolution. |
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