Xerophyte

Habit

It is a low growing cylindrical cactus species sprawling and spreading from its base and half-lying on the ground.

Description

Haageocereus lanugispinusSN|31691]]SN|3862]] is a very rare and poorly known cactus that produces finger sized, sprawling stems offsetting from the base. The peculiarity of this plant is the nice fine spination. It seems that there is only ONE clone propagated in collections worldwide!

Taxonomy

According to the “The New Cactus Lexicon" Haageocereus lanugispinusSN|31691]]SN|3862]] is a synonym of Haageocereus tenuisSN|3862]]SN|31691]]. In effect the seeds of tenuis are very similar to those of lanugispinus, but in culture, there are a lot of differences, in particular the spination in tenuis is much less dense. Both are beautiful anyway.

Note

This plant seems to be very rarely seen in its "normal" form, as it is almost always seen the cristate form. However the crested form sometimes throws off normal stems, but they proved to be particularly difficult to root, for this reason the few plants found in specialized cactus collections are - usually – grafted.

Flowers

White, 5 cm long.

Spines

30-40, most unusual dense, short, unequal, needle-like, glassy white, 3-5 mm long, which detach very easily. As in Haageocereus tenuisSN|3862]]SN|31691]] the spines are minutely plumose.

Ribs

13-14, 1.5-2 mm high.

Stem

Cylindrical, 10-20 cm long, 1.2 2 cm in diameter, either upright or prostrate, eventually clumping near the base of the plant, green, somewhat hidden under a dense cover of glassy white spines.