Echinocactus williamsii

Peyote was first described in 1560. The first person publishing a binomial name for it was the French botanist Charles Lemaire, who in 1845 called it Echinocactus williamsii in a horticultural catalog. He didn t describe it, however. The description validating the binomial soon came from another European botanist, Prince Salm-Dyck, who didn t provide an illustration. Above is the first published image of peyote, appearing in Curtis Botanical Magazine in 1847. 

A great deal of botanical pother about the peyote plant results from its having been classified first by Lemaire in 1845 as Echinocactus williamsii, then by Voss in 1872 as Anhalonium williamsii and then by Coulter in 1891 as belonging to the Mammillaria genus. By the end of the nineteenth century, botanists had placed it in five separate genera. It was only in 1894 that it began to be known by its present name Lophophora. The name Lophophora derives from that tuft in the center it means "crest-bearer. ... 

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