Xerophyte

Leaves

Rudimental to 1.5 mm, lanceolate.

Description

Echidnopsis repens, (syn

Inflorescences

From the furrows between tubercles.

Note

from Latin 'repens', 'creeping', presumably refering to the creeping stems of the plant.

Flowers

Pedicels 2 mm Long. Corolla, 7-9 mm across, lower third saucer-shaped, spreading towards the lobes, and touching the gynostegium, lower surface glabrous, green, inside deeply wine-red, with several hairs at the centre, and near the margins of the minutely hairy lobes. Corolla-lobes, sometimes tipped yellow, ovate-deltoid or ovate, 3-3.5 mm long,ascending-spreading or spreading, occasionally margins recurved out-wards, especially the sinuses. Corolla-tube and margin of the a lobes inside with scattered hairs. Corona c. 1 mm tall and 2.5 mm wide, cup-shaped, prominently pentagonal. Outer corona-lobes basally light red, margin purplish-red. Inner corona-lobes rectangular-ovate, c. 0.7 mm long.

Chromosome Number

2n = 22

Taxonomic

This little plant is allied to Echidnopsis sharpeiSN|30420]]SN|30420]] and Echidnopsis virchowii. It has the eight-angled stems of E. sharpei, and the flowers are of the same size, but interior of corolla sparsely hairy; tube narrower, adpressed to side of staminal column. With E. virchowii it shares the cup-shaped corolla. The coronal structure is very near that of E. virchowii from which it differs by having a few long hairs on the outer corona, and by the entire tips of the deltoid inner corona horns.

Stem

Little branched, creeping, rooting almost over their whole length, sub-cylindrical, 6-9 mm in diameter. Tubercles flat, much longer than broad, arranged in 8 -10 ribs, young tubercles with tiny, deciduous leaves.