Xerophyte

Description

Rhipsalis bacciferaSN|6426]]SN|6426]] subs. shaferi is a tropical evergreen but leafless, succulent, epiphytic plant with thin hanging stems. Although a member of the cactus family, it has a very different appearence and is spineless. Subspecies schaferi distingushes for its generally shorter, stiffer stem-segments than subsp. baccifera, with which it intergrades. Subspecies schaferi, should be treated as a good species ( Korotkova 2011). It is commonly known as the mistletoe cactus.

Note

shaferi For John A. Shafer (1863–1918), USAmerican botanist, pharmacist and plant collector, esp. in the West Indies, collected 1916–1917 cacti for the US-American botanists N. L. Britton and J. N. Rose in South America.

Flowers

Numerous, white or greenish-white, patent, scattered all along side of branch, solitary (rarely in pairs) at areoles, small, rotate, 8 to 10 mm broad; petals 5 or 6, short-oblong, obtuse; filaments greenish, erect; stigma-lobes 4, white; ovary not sunken in branch. Pericarpel not immersed in the areole.

Chromosome Number

2n = 22.

Stem

At first stiff, erect or ascending, later spreading or pendent, 4 to 5 mm thick, terete, green or with purplish tips and sometimes at areoles. Juvenile and lower branches often with several bristles at areoles; upper branches without or with a single appressed one; scales subtending the areoles small but broad

Fruits

Small, globose, 2 to 3 mm in diameter, white or sometimes tinged with pink.