Acanthocereus suinermis

• Interesting Facts
• Description
• Taxonomy
• Similar Species
• More Info
• Further Reading
• Notes

Interesting Facts

Description

Family Cactaceae

Fleshy perennials , shrubs , trees or vines , terrestrial or epiphytic. Stems jointed , terete , globose , flattened, or fluted , mostly leafless and variously spiny . Leaves alternate, flat or subulate to terete, vestigial, or entirely absent; spines, glochids (easily detached, small, bristlelike spines), and flowers always arising from cushionlike, axillary areoles (modified short shoots ) . Flowers solitary, sessile, rarely clustered and stalked (in Pereskia), bisexual , rarely unisexual , actinomorphic or occasionally zygomorphic. Receptacle tube (hypanthium or perianth tube) absent or short to elongate , naked or invested with leaflike bracts, scales , areoles, and hairs , bristles , or spines; perianth segments usually numerous , in a sepaloid to petaloid series. Stamens numerous, variously inserted in throat and tube; anthers 2-loculed, dehiscing longitudinally. Ovary (pericarpel) inferior, rarely superior, 1-loculed, with 3 to many parietal (rarely basal) placentas; ovules usually numerous; style 1; stigmas 2 to numerous, papillate , rarely 2-fid. Fruit juicy or dry, naked, scaly , hairy , bristly , or spiny, indehiscent or dehiscent , when juicy then pulp derived from often deliquescent funicles (except in Pereskia) . Seeds usually numerous, often arillate or strophiolate ; embryo curved or rarely straight; endosperm present or absent; cotyledons reduced or vestigial, rarely leaflike.

About 110 genera and more than 1000 species: temperate and tropical America; Rhipsalis baccifera (J. S. Mueller) Stearn native in tropical Africa, Madagascar, Comoros, Mascarenes, and Sri Lanka; some species of other genera now extensively naturalized in the Old World through human agency; more than 60 genera and 600 species cultivated as ornamentals or hedges in China, of which four genera and seven species more or less naturalized.[1]

Genus Acanthocereus

Shrubs , erect to arching , clambering , or climbing , often sparingly branched, sometimes forming impenetrable thickets. Roots diffuse , adventitious where arching stems touch soil. Stems segmented or unsegmented , green, greatly elongate , angled , 30-400[-700] × (4-) 6-10 cm; ribs 3-5[-7], narrowly triangular to winglike, very prominent , 3-5 cm deep, less than 1 cm thick, rib crests undulate ; areoles widely spaced, located next to sinuses, 2-5 cm apart along ribs, circular to oval , short woolly . Spines [0-]4-10 per areole, diffusely spreading , brown or reddish [white, yellowish, or black], aging gray, ± straight, acicular to subulate , terete or somewhat flattened, longest spines 10-40[-70] mm, hard; radial spines [0-]6-8 per areole, 5-25 mm; central spines [0-]1-2[-4] per areole, 0-40 mm. Flowers nocturnal , lateral to terminal on stems 1 or more years old, at adaxial edge of areoles, funnelform , [11-]14-20[-25] cm; outer tepals green or purple tinged, lanceolate-linear, 3-5 × 1 cm; inner tepals white, broadly linear to narrowly oblanceolate , 5-15 × 1-4 cm, margins entire or minutely denticulate ; ovary minutely scaly , spiny [spineless], with short wool; stigma lobes 10-15, white, to 12 mm. Fruits indehiscent or irregularly dehiscent longitudinally, red to red-purple, spheric, ovoid , ellipsoid , oblong , or pyriform , 30-80[-120] mm, fleshy or juicy [tough in A. columbianus], scaly, spiny [or spineless]; scales deciduous; pulp red; floral remnant persistent . Seeds black, broadly obovoid , to 4.8 mm, smooth and shiny; testa cells flat. x = 11.

Species 6: se United States, Mexico, West Indies, Central America, n and e South America.

Acanthocereus needs critical taxonomic study. E. F. Anderson (2001) followed W. Barthlott and D. R. Hunt (1993) in recognizing six species; other accounts have recognized up to twelve species or as few as two (A. tetragonus and A. occidentalis Britton & Rose).[2]

Taxonomy

Notes

An accepted name in the RHS Horticultural Database.

Similar Species

Members of the genus Acanthocereus

ZipcodeZoo has pages for 10 species, subspecies, varieties, forms, and cultivars in this genus:

A. baxaniensis (Acanthocereus) · A. chiapensis (Acanthocereus) · A. colombianus (Acanthocereus) · A. horridus (Acanthocereus) · A. occidentalis (Acanthocereus) · A. subinermis (Acanthocereus) · A. tetragonus (Barbed-Wire Cactus) · A. tetragonus f. variegata monstrose cristate 'Fairy Castle Variegated' (Variegated Crested Monstose Acanthocereus) · A. tetragonus var. variegata (Acanthocereus) · A. tetragonus 'Fairy Castle' (Acanthocereus)

More Info

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Further Reading

• .Li Zhenyu. 1999. Cactaceae. In: Ku Tsuechih, ed., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 52(1): 272-285.
• Hunt, D. R. 1991. Acanthocereus. Bradleya 9: 82-83.

Notes

Contributors

• Brands, S.J. (comp.) 1989-present. The Taxonomicon. Universal Taxonomic Services, Zwaag, The Netherlands. Accessed January 10, 2012.

Identifiers

• Zipcode Zoo Species Identifier: 1880295

Footnotes

1. Zhen-yu Li & Nigel P. Taylor "Cactaceae". in Flora of China Vol. 13 Page 209. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]
2. Bruce D. Parfitt & Arthur C. Gibson "Acanthocereus". in Flora of North America Vol. 4 Page 96, 152, 154. Oxford University Press. Online at EFloras.org. [back]

©2004-2012 David Stang. All rights reserved.