Discocactus catingicola rapirhizua

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.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.

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

Domain: Eukaryota () - Whittaker & Margulis,1978
- Kingdom: Plantae () - Haeckel, 1866 - Plants
  - Subkingdom: Viridaeplantae () - Cavalier-Smith, 1981
    - Phylum: Magnoliophyta () - Sinnott, 1935 Ex Cavalier-Smith, 1998 - Flowering Plants
      - Subphylum: Euphyllophytina ()
        Infraphylum: Radiatopses () - Kenrick & Crane, 1997
        Class: Magnoliopsida () - Brongniart, 1843 - Dicotyledons
        Subclass: Caryophyllidae () - Takhtajan, 1967
        Superorder: Caryophyllanae () - Takhtajan, 1967
        Order: Caryophyllales () - Perleb, 1826
        Suborder: Portulacineae ()
        Family: Cactaceae () - Durande, 1782, Nom. Cons. - Cactus Family
        Genus: Discocactus ()
        Specific epithet: catingicola - P.J.Braun & Esteves
        Botanical name: - Discocactus catingicola rapirhizua P.J.Braun & Esteves