| | The genera of Cactaceae |
The plants succulent; cerioid; not ‘low and very compacted’. The stems spiny; elongate cylindric. The plants terrestrial and self supporting; becoming much branched; erect; tree-like; with well formed trunks; to 4–7 m high. The branches resembling the main stem. The main stem globose. The branches globose. The stems not segmented; ribbed and grooved. The ribs 7–8; longitudinal; more or less triangular in section, with straight margins. The grooves fairly deep and fairly wide. The plants not conspicuously tuberculate. The areoles not tubercle-associated; closely approximating, or closely approximating and confluent (closely positioned, sometimes becoming confluent); borne in longitudinal series; simple (dull grey, oblong when not confluent). The flowering areoles resembling the non-flowering ones. The areoles with spines. The spines clustered; 10–21; 1–2 cm long; with radials and centrals differentiated (usually with the pectinately arranged radials to 12 mm long, and a longer, central red-orange to yellow or grey one). Central spines usually 1. Radial spines 10–20. The spines straight. The mature stems leafless.
Flowering during the day. The flowers lateral (sub-apically); one per areole, or more than one per areole (?); somewuat campanulate, or tubular; sessile; small; regular. The receptacle conspicuously produced beyond the ovary into a tubular hypanthium; not naked; without scales; spineless (?). The pericarpel with distinctive broad triangular, tan, translucent-membranous bract-scales. The hypanthial tube ornamented like the pericarpel; not naked; with scales. The axils of the scales of the hypanthial tube more or less naked. The hypanthial tube spineless. The perianth segments more or less erect; yellow; limb relatively large. The perianth segments relatively short, broad; pointed. Stamens and style not exserted.
The mature fruit 4–6 cm long ("to 4cm or more in diameter"); globose; brown, or purple; not naked (with scales); without spines; with persistent floral remains; edible, fleshy; indehiscent. The seeds numerous, small, the hilum truncate, black; pyriform ("obovate in outline"); not encased in bony arils. The testa shiny; rugose. Cotyledons reduced or vestigial.
Natural Distribution. Southern Mexico.
Classification. 1 species (E. chiotilla). Subfamily Cactoideae. Tribe Pachycereeae.
Cf. Hunt, 1967.
Images. • Escontria chiotilla, flower and fruit: Britton & Rose (1920).
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2018 onwards. The genera of Cactaceae: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 14th November 2021. delta-intkey.com’.
