| | The genera of Cactaceae |
Including Philippicereus Backeb.
The plants cerioid; not ‘low and very compacted’. The stems spiny; neither cephaliate nor pseudocephaliate. The plants mostly freely branched; prostrate, or erect; shrubby to tree-like; with well formed trunks, or not developing conspicuous trunks; to 1–7 m high. The stems columnar. The branches differing in form from the main stem, or resembling the main stem. The main stem more or less cylindrical. The branches cylindrical. The stems segmented; not annually articulating; ribbed and grooved. The ribs 9–16; longitudinal. The grooves wide. The plants somewhat conspicuously tuberculate, or not conspicuously tuberculate. The tubercles connected by the ribs; borne in longitudinal series. The areoles associated with tubercles, or not tubercle-associated; closely approximating to distant; borne in longitudinal series; simple. The flowering areoles resembling the non-flowering ones (?). The areoles with wool or long hairs; without glochids; with spines. The spines clustered; 10–30; 0.5–20 cm long; with radials and centrals differentiated, or showing little or no difference between radials and centrals (usually with one spine much elongated). Central spines when differentiated, 1–2. Radial spines 6–20. The spines often long and stout. The mature stems leafless.
Flowering at night and during the day. The flowers lateral; one per areole; shortly, broadly funnelform, or funnelform (with hairs or bristles); sessile; medium-sized to large; 5–7.5 cm long; regular. The receptacle shortly but conspicuously produced beyond the ovary into a tubular hypanthium to scarcely produced beyond the ovary. The pericarpel more or less globular, with numerous scales and axillary wool, long hairs or bristly spines. The hypanthial tube not S-shaped; not naked; with scales (these numerous). The axils of the scales of the hypanthial tube not naked (with axillary wool). The hypanthial tube with spines (these bristly), or spineless. The perianth exposed during bud development; members short; white, or pink; limb relatively large. The perianth segments somewhat spreading, or more or less erect; relatively short, broad. Stamens numerous; adnate to the perianth (inserted in the broad throat).
The mature fruit 3–6.5 cm long; globose; green (-ish), or yellow (-ish), or orange (-ish); not naked (scaly); spiny (rarely), or without spines; fleshy; indehiscent (?). The seeds gray to black; obliquely ovoid ("ovate"); not encased in bony arils; with hilum and micropyle conjunct. The testa dull; verrucose. Cotyledons reduced or vestigial.
Natural Distribution. Chile and southern Peru, rarely to elevations reaching 1000m.
Classification. 5 species. Subfamily Cactoideae. Tribe Notocacteae.
Cf. Hunt, 1967.
Images. • Eulychnia ritteri: © Zoya Akulova (2011). • Eulychnia iquiquensis, with Stenocereus dumortieri (as Lemaireocereus) and Peniocereus serpentinus (as Nyctocereus): 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’.
