Neolloydia inexpectata

Name and history of recognition

Davide Donati published Neolloydia inexpectata in Piante Grasse in 2012. POWO accepts it as a separate species and places the combination Cochemiea inexpectata in synonymy. The 2025 revision relates the earlier recognition of the species to a comparison of seedlings with N. conoidea. The 2025 study included adult plants and allowed a separate set of identifying characters to be added. [2-WWW] [Moredia-Rosete et al. 2025, POWO, checked on 11 October 2026. Moredia-Rosete et al., pp. 754, 761]

Spine orientation and surface structure

In the revision, adult material had a light green, shiny surface. The central spines are appressed and usually number two or three, up to four. The authors give 13–15 radial spines, up to 16. Spaces are visible between the tubercles. The stem lacks the basal constriction described for some new species. The combination of these characters is important because it shares the central spine count alone with several similar plants. [Moredia-Rosete et al. 2025, p. 761, Table 5 on p. 767, key on p. 772]

The authors examined ten adult individuals. They reported central spine lengths from 0.50 to 1.11 cm. Their appressed arrangement distinguished the N. inexpectata material from the N. conoidea, N. matehualensis and plants identified in this revision as N. ceratites used for comparison. This arrangement determines the distance of the spine from the epidermis and is more informative than length alone. [Moredia-Rosete et al. 2025, p. 757, 761]

The outer tepals have a reddish centre, pale margins and a faint greenish tint. This colour accompanies the shiny epidermis and appressed spines, forming the character set included in the revision's identification key. [Moredia-Rosete et al. 2025, p. 772, klucz identyfikacyjny]

Range and soil

POWO reports occurrence in Tamaulipas in northeastern Mexico. In the habitat analysis by Moredia-Rosete and colleagues, data for this taxon came from five spatially separated records. Sites were associated with plains and weakly developed mineral soils, mainly eutric regosols. At the biogeographic scale, they were assigned to the Sierra Madre Oriental pine–oak forest ecoregion. The ecoregion boundary defines the site's surroundings and does not imply closed forest above every plant. [2-WWW] [Moredia-Rosete et al. 2025, Moredia-Rosete et al., pp. 756, 759, 764, Table 5]

Five habitat records and a map-layer resolution of about 1 km² define the scale of this comparison. Soil units assigned to the sites describe the wider surroundings, while fine substrate differences at the level of an individual stem require field measurements. [Moredia-Rosete et al. 2025, pp. 755–756, selection of records and habitat layers]

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