Xerophyte

Leaves

Rudimentary, awl-like, terete, persistent, 0.5-3 cm long.

Description

Austrocylindropuntia verschaffeltiiSN|4131]]SN|4131]] is a much branched shrubby cactus, that forms low, dense clumps 10-30 cm high that looks sort of like worms growing out the ground. The shoots are oblong and round and with cylindrical leaves when young. The flowers are orange or coppery red and are produced on young plants.

Flowers

Numerous, orange-red to copper-red, to 4 cm long; pericarpels with few areoles, slightly bristly at rims.

Spines

Variable, sparse, usually 1 to 3 (occasionally up to 7), yellowish, weak needle-like or bristle-like, 1-6 cm long straight or bent, sometimes interlacing, sometimes absent.

Stem

Joints globular-ellipsoidal to short-cylindric 1 to 10 cm long, somewhat tuberculate, pale green, becoming woody at base, green when grown in partial shade or low light, but when exposed to full sun they blush an attractive purple-red colour, new growth a burgundy in winter, sometimes producing small globose segments by acrotonic branching (with most developed branches located near the top of the mother branch). In cultivated plants joints are much more elongated, 6 to 21 cm long, slender, 1-1.5 cm in diameter, strongly tuberculate, and often spineless.

Fruits

Ellipsoidal to pear shaped, spiny or spineless.

Areoles

Small, narrow, longer than broad, filled with short white wool. Glochids few, white.