Profiles of Sclerocactus. A personal contribution to thre knowledge of a cactus genus and its botanical history. 2025. illus. (col.(.

One can imagine the joy I felt each time I encountered these cacti in landscapes that were immense, often surprising, if not grandiose. Today, many of these cacti have disappeared or are in the process of
disappearing. Too many are disappearing and that saddens me, because these cacti are not only part of the rich flora of our planet, but they have also been part of my life since the late 1980s, when I was fascinated
by the armada of spines displayed by the first specimens I encountered.

Since the late 1990s, my trips across the Atlantic, which I have made almost every year, have been aimed at searching for these cacti in order to observe and study them at leisure in their territory, in their environments, and to photograph them, each time experiencing great moments of happiness in discovering them, sometimes even rediscovering them at previously visited sites.

Having acquired a great deal of knowledge about the genus Sclerocactus over the years and accumulated a considerable number of photographs of these cacti in their habitats, I felt it necessary to compile what I consider to be the essence of my knowledge and the best of my images. My goal: to show what may no longer be visible in a few years or decades, or at least will no longer be as easily visible as it has been for me.

Hence this book, which, through the photographs it presents, aims to contribute to the knowledge of Sclerocactus in their natural environments. For this book is first and foremost a collection of photographs that serves as
a documentary record.

Jean Bonnefond