Cactaceae image
Anthony Mendoza  



Hybridization has be

PLANTS: Trees, shrubs, climbers, mat-formers, some columnar or globular to caespitose or epiphytic. ROOTS: usually diffuse and wide-spreading, some tuber-like. STEMS: (long shoots) semi-succulent to succulent, mostly green to gray, usually glabrous, cylindric to strongly flattened, sometimes prominently ribbed and usually constricted at bases of branches or (in Opuntia) elongating by annually produced segments. AREOLES: (short shoots) cushion-like, in axils oflong shoot leaves, circular to elongate, sometimes partially to wholly divided into two parts, usually bearing trichomes, leaves (spines and rarely also fleshy, laminate to subterete leaves) and flowers. LEAVES: (of long shoot) alternate, simple, petiolate to sessile, estipulate, fleshy, laminate to minute conic projections or obsolete, borne on obscure to prominent tubercles (enlargements of leaf bases and adjacent stem tissues), these sometimes coalescing into vertical ribs. SPINES: lignified, persistent (or falling with areoles), commonly the central-most (central spines) surrounded by usually finer peripheral ones (radial spines), but in subfamily Opuntioideae short, fine, deciduous, usually retrorsely barbed spines (glochids) also present. INFLORESCENCE: of 1(-few) flowers per areole, secondarily clustered variously at or near apices of stems, rarely on stalks as corymbs or panicles. FLOWERS: perfect or rarely imperfect, actinomorphicto zygomorphic, epigynous, rarely perigynous (in spp. of Pereskia), with a nectariferous floral tube (hypanthium fused to surrounding stem tissue) of varying lengths and usually bearing areoles; tepals few to many, at least the innermost showy, rarely differentiated into sepals and petals; stamens several to many, borne on the floral tube; ovary of few to many carpels embedded in specialized stem tissues, 1-1oculed; style 1; stigma lobes varying in number. FRUIT: fleshy, juicy or dry, spiny, scaly or smooth, indehiscent or splitting irregularly, or circumscissile, or opening by slit(s) or a basal pore. SEEDS: several to numerous, some bony-arillate (Opuntioideae), obovoid to lenticular reniform, to winged, shiny to dull, smooth to ornate. x = 11. NOTES: Approximately 110 genera and 1500 spp., widespread throughout the Western Hemisphere with centers of diversity in Mexico, Brazil, and the Andean regions. (Greek: kaktos = a kind of prickly plant). Benson, L. 1982. The Cacti of the United States and Canada. Stanford, CA, Stanford Univ. Press; Bravo-Hollis, H., and H. Sanchez-Mejorada. 1978, 1991. Las Cactdceas de Mexico. Ed. 2, 3 vols. Univ. Nacional Aut6noma de Mexico, Mexico; Britton N. L., and J. N. Rose. 1919-1923. The Cactaceae. 4 vols. Carnegie Inst. Wash. Pub!. 248. REFERENCES: Pinkava, Donald J. 1995. Cactaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. 29(1): 2, 6.
Common Name: cactus apple Duration: Perennial