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| The genera of Cactaceae |
~ Browningia, cf. Hunt (1967)
The plants cerioid; not ‘low and very compacted’. The stems spiny; bluish green, elongate cylindric; 8–15 cm in diameter. The plants terrestrial and self supporting; mostly basally much branched; erect; shrubby; solitary to clustering (often thicket forming); to 4 m high. The stems columnar. The branches resembling the main stem. The main stem and branches spiny, more or less cylindrical. The branches cylindrical; 8–15 cm in diameter. The stems not segmented; ribbed and grooved. The ribs 5–6; longitudinal. The grooves wide. The plants more or less conspicuously tuberculate (the tubercles weakly flattened). The tubercles connected by the ribs; borne in longitudinal series. The areoles associated with tubercles; distant; borne in longitudinal series; simple (many faceted); woolly; without glochids; with spines. The spines paired, or clustered; (2–)6–8; 0.1–5 cm long; with radials and centrals differentiated, or showing little or no difference between radials and centrals (then the uppermost longer); straight, or curved (varying in length and thickness); initially reddish below and yellowish distally, becoming greyish white. The mature stems leafless.
Flowering at night. The flowers lateral (towards the stem tips); one per areole; funnelform to campanulate; sessile; large; 8–10 cm long (and to 5 cm in diameter); regular. The receptacle conspicuously produced beyond the ovary into a tubular hypanthium. The hypanthial tube not naked; with scales (these numerous, small, broad, acute). The axils of the scales of the hypanthial tube with curly brown hairs, not naked. The hypanthial tube spineless. The perianth white; limb relatively large to short or none. The perianth segments relatively short, broad. Stamens and style exserted beyond the perianth.
The mature fruit ovoid; red; with persistent floral remains; fleshy; indehiscent (?). The seeds small; black; ovoid; not encased in bony arils. The testa shiny; tuberculate and pitted (? - "shallowly tuberculate with tiny pits"). Cotyledons reduced or vestigial.
Natural Distribution. Northern Peru.
Classification. 1 species (R. riosaniensis). Subfamily Cactoideae. Tribe Trichocereeae.
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’.