Xerophyte

Description

Rhipsalis pilocarpaSN|26979]]SN|26979]] (ErythroSN'>26980' alt='26979'>Rhipsalis pilocarpa#SN#26979'>Erythro[[Rhipsalis pilocarpaSN' style='border

Flowers

At ends of terminal branches, singly or in pairs, opening slowly, up to 20(-35) mm broad. Flower-tube about 2 mm. Long, reddish on the inside.Outer perianth-segments 5 or 6, triangular, rose-coloured. Inner perianth segments 10 to 15, spreading or sometimes recurved, lanceolate, acuminate, approx 10 mm long, white or cream-coloured with pinkish tips. Stamens numerous, red at bases. Pericarpels 2.5-4 mm in diameter with several areoles, bearing as many as 10 bristle-like spines, subtended by small scarious scales and surrounded by purple spots. Style exerted in the bud; stigma-lobes 4 to 8, white, spreading apart the second day after the appearance of the style and before the stamens appear.

Stem

Dark green to purple, slender, cylindrical, at first erect, sometimes 40 cm long and unbranched, erect at first, in time the whole plant becoming pendent, terminated by 2 to 4 branches in a whorl, the ultimate branches 1 to 4 cm. long, 6 mm in diameter. Segments clustered, perfectly round in cross section, succulent, when withering somewhat angled. Growth determinate, terminating in composite areoles, tipped by bristles.

Fruits

Spherical, up to 12 mm in diameter, wine red, very bristly.

Areoles

Filled green, sometimes tinged with purple, somewhat woolly, with 3-10grey, yellow to white setose hairs or bristles 4-6 mm long subtended by ovate scarious bracts.