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| The genera of Cactaceae |
Including Puna R. Kiesling
The plants opuntioid. The stems spiny (usually), or not spiny. The plants deep rooted, geophytic (with tuberous roots); branched, or offsetting (densely branched from below, and cushion forming); prostrate, or erect; neither shrubby nor tree-like, or shrubby; to 0.01–2 m high. The branches ovoid, shortly cylindrical, or globose, or flattened. The stems indistinctly segmented, or not segmented; not ribbed and grooved. The plants not conspicuously tuberculate (but sometimes slightly so). The areoles not tubercle-associated (located in depressions); distant; simple; hairy, or without hairs; with glochids; usually with spines, or without spines (rarely). The spines when present, solitary to clustered; (1–)2–20; 0.1–6 cm long; with radials and centrals differentiated, or showing little or no difference between radials and centrals; often flattened. The mature stems with much reduced leaves. Leaves of mature stems small (caducous); terete.
Flowering during the day. The flowers lateral; one per areole; sessile; small to large; 2–8.5 cm long; regular. The receptacle conspicuously produced beyond the ovary into a tubular hypanthium, or scarcely produced beyond the ovary; not naked; with scales (leaflike); with spines (or glochids only?), or spineless. The pericarpel with fewer than 30 areoles, naked or with bristle-like spines. The perianth yellow (mostly), or yellow, or orange, or purple. The perianth segments relatively short, broad; blunt. Stamens not separated from the perianth by a ring of hairs. The funicles not circinate.
The mature fruit 1–5 cm long (where known); globose, or ovoid, or pyriform, or turbinate; green, or yellow (-ish); naked, or not naked; spiny, or spiny and with glochids, or without spines; fleshy to non-fleshy when mature; dehiscent, or indehiscent; if dehiscent, irregularly dehiscent. The seeds about 6 mm long; conspicuously hairy (with a soft and woolly funicular envelope); "scarcely tapered"; encased in their bony arils (?). Cotyledons foliaceous (?).
Natural Distribution. Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina.
Classification. 18 species. Subfamily Opuntioideae. Tribe Tephrocacteae.
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’.