Family: Cactaceae (Cactus Family)
Scientific Name: Frailea castanea Backeberg 1936
Published in: Backeberg & F. M. Knuth Kaktus ABC: 248, 415, 1936.
Origin: The plant is found from Southern Brazil to Northern Uruguay
Conservation status: Listed in CITES Appendix II
Synonyms: Frailea asterioides Werdermann 1937
Etymology: The genus name "Frailea" remembers the Spanish "Manuel Fraile", born in 1850 who was responsible for the cactus collection of the Department of Agriculture of the United States at the end of the XIX century.
The species name name "castanea" derives from the Latin name “Castanea” which means “chestnut” and refers to dark reddish-brown colour. (the Latin "Castanea" derives from the Greek. "kastaneia", which meant either "nut from Castanea" in Pontus (eastern Greece) or "nut from Castana" in Thessaly, but probably both places are named for the trees, and the word is probably borrowed from a language of Asia Minor. ( The specific name implies: "coloured like a chestnut").