Jal., known only from rocks in the barranca of the Rio Santiago N of Amatitan, 750-800 m, fruiting Sep (McVaugh 18530, female, MICH!, the holotype).
Known to Smith only from fragments of a male plant;
What is apparently male material of the same species has been collected at or near the type-locality (Mpio. Amatitan, Barranca de Santa Rosa, 1000 m, tropical deciduous forest with Bursera and Ceiba, fl Jul, Puga 3423, IBUG).
Raceme 21 cm long, ca 1.7 cm thick, densely ca 120-flowered;
floral bracts 6-9 mm long, ovate, acuminate with thin erose margins, horizontally spreading, strongly convex, at base rigid and gibbous;
pedicels horizontally spreading, 2.5 mm long, fleshy, ca 1 mm thick; flowers white,
sepals 4-5 mm long, stiffly coriaceous, boatshaped (rounded on the backs), cucullate;
petals 6 mm long, elliptic, cucullate, broad at base, distinct, but adnate to the bases of the filaments;
filaments 6 mm long, distally filiform, long-tapering above a triangular base 1 mm wide; anthers versatile, curved, 1.5 mm long; ovarian rudiment conic, 1.5 mm high.
In the protologue, Hechtia jaliscana was contrasted with H. fosteriana L. B. Smith (Phytologia 8: 8. 1961). It was said to differ from that species, a native of Oaxaca, by having the primary bracts densely serrate and the floral bracts about as long as the sepals. Both these poorly known species belong in a group characterized by having a superior ovary, sepals and floral bracts brown or yellowish (at least not roseate) and often with hyaline margins, and floral bracts strongly convex, ample, always exceeding the pedicels and usually the sepals. Apparently no other species in that group is known from Nueva Galicia. —SeeMcVaugh 1989
