| | The genera of Cactaceae |
The plants succulent; cerioid; not ‘low and very compacted’. The stems spiny; elongate cylindric. The plants not producing aerial roots; freely branched; erect; tree-like; with well formed trunks; solitary; to 3–7 m high. The stems columnar. The main stem more or less cylindrical. The branches cylindrical; to 10–50 cm long (and 3–5 cm in diameter). The stems segmented; annually articulating; ribbed and grooved. The ribs 16–22; longitudinal; low. The grooves wide. The plants not conspicuously tuberculate. The areoles not tubercle-associated; distant (typically 6–9 mm apart); borne in longitudinal series; simple; with spines. The spines clustered; 35–45 ("about 40"); 0.5–5 cm long; unequal, radiating, showing little or no difference between radials and centrals; stiff to flexible; yellowish, ultimately darkening. The mature stems leafless.
Flowering at night. The flowers lateral; more than one per areole; funnelform, or rotate, or salver-shaped, the perianth limb broad (with no more than traces of felt); sessile; medium-sized to large (5–9 cm long); regular. The receptacle conspicuously produced beyond the ovary into a tubular hypanthium. The pericarpel slender, elongate, only slightly woolly in the axils of the small broad, scales. The hypanthial tube slender, and ornamented like the pericarpel; not naked; with scales (these small, broad). The axils of the scales of the hypanthial tube not naked (but only slightly woolly). The hypanthial tube spineless. The perianth limb broad, the segments spreading or rotate; creamy white, or green; limb relatively large. The perianth segments spreading. Stamens adnate to the perianth (inserted in the tube).
The mature fruit 5–9 cm long; globose, or ovoid, or ellipsoidal (oblong); green (-ish), or red to purple; naked to not naked ("nearly naked"); spiny; with persistent floral remains; slightly fleshy, or non-fleshy when mature (hardening at maturity); indehiscent (?). The seeds 1–2 mm long; usually black; reniform (? - "curved-obovate in outline"); curved; not encased in bony arils; with hilum and micropyle conjunct. The testa shiny; strongly verrucose. Cotyledons reduced or vestigial.
Natural Distribution. Galápagos Is.
Classification. 1 species (J. thouarsii). Subfamily Cactoideae. Tribe Browningieae.
Cf. Hunt (1967).
Images. • Jasminocereus thouarsii (as galapagensis), habit: Britton & Rose (1920). • Jasminocereus thouarsii (as galapagensis), flowers: 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’.
