Xerophyte

Description

Rhipsalis floccosaSN|32842]]SN|32842]] ssp. tucumanensis usually hang from the branches of the big trees jungle canopy and has many slender segment branches 4 to 10 mm in diameter and sometimes in whorls. It is similar to subspecies pulvinigera but with green stems without red colouring, and larger fruits that are red or white and to 10 mm in diameter. The stems have woolly areoles when young but soon becoming naked.

Flowers

One per areola, rotate, c. 7 mm long and 15 to 18 mm in diameter, pinkish white to cream, scentless. Outer perianth segments (sepaloids) 4, whitish, rose-coloured in the back. Inner perianth segments (petaloids) 8 radially spreading, oval, lanceolate. Stamens numerous white, spreading, much shorter than petals. Style white, stigma lobes 4 or 5. Ovary sunken in the branch and surrounded by a tuft of wool. Nectary anular (donut-like) around the style at the base of the short floral tube.

Blooming Season

Flowers bloom in spring; flowers are diurnal, with anthesis lasting two days..Fruits (berries) White tinged with red or pinkish around the dry perianth, c. 8-10 mm in diameter. Under greenhouse conditions (high humidity) the ripening of fruits occur about 30 days after blooming. Not so with the plants found in habitat with low humidity, since the fruit remains with rudimentary appearance between a tuft of white wool; in occasion of the first rainfall a very rapid hydration occurs, followed by an immediate fruit ripening, which suggests that the maturation of the fruits depends on exogenous hydration.

Stem

Stem branching only at apex (acrotonic) slender, unarmed and terete. When young, bright green with a red spot at the areoles and when old, yellowish green and somewhat angular.