Peyoteros maintain peyote gardens at their places of business, offering their Native American Church (NAC) customers the opportunity to visit and pray. These gardens include specimens of both peyote and star cactus (Fig. 12). On rare occasions the NAC members take a specimen of star cactus back to their homes as a nonconsumable souvenir from the “peyote gardens” of South Texas. Though the intention is to maintain these star cacti indefinitely in cultivation, damage to the root system that occurs in the collection process assures that most of these exiled plants will die in a few months. In any event, the act of removing such a plant from the population of which it was an element, renders it effectively dead in terms of its potential contribution to the genetics of the wild population

Total peyote harvests reported by licensed distributors

Star cactus is currently known from only two subpopulations in Texas and six in Mexico (Martinez Avalos 2002). The Texas population was estimated to total 2,000 individuals (Damude and Poole 1995). Peyoteros are familiar with star cactus and report that harvesters rarely bring it in; one distributor estimated that one plant in a thousand might be star cactus. In recent years, harvest of peyote in Texas has fluctuated around 2,000,000 buttons. Although rare, incidental harvest of star cactus at a rate of 0.1% of peyote harvests would result in “take” of nearly 2,000 individuals, approaching the size of the known population.

Local people in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas view star cactus or “star peyote” as a curiosity. On rare occasions botanists have encountered star cactus specimens being cultivated as potted plants or in home cactus gardens. These star cacti were collected locally from undisclosed private lands. Rumors of additional star cactus populations abound, yet in a landscape where over 90% of the land is privately owned (Anderson 1995), opportunities for botanists to survey are limited. Further, star cactus is extremely cryptic and easily overlooked during the long dry periods that are prevalent in South Texas.

We believe that peyote harvesters could significantly add to the number of known populations of star cactus, probably expanding the known extent of its distribution. Historically there has been no incentive for them to do so. As we continue our fieldwork with these two species, we envision establishing working relationships with peyote harvesters. Collaboration with such important sources of local botanical knowledge will be crucial to the effective management of the endangered star cactus.

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