Xerophyte

Seeds

Black.

Description

Cereus hexagonus is a treelike cactus that grows like a candelabrum with a short thick trunk from the top of which it sends out cylindrical shoots which as soon as they have room rise straight upwards in fluted pillars up to 15 metres height Such a plant with pillars rising side by side and almost touching one another has a curious resemblance to an organ with its pipes and thence its name organo

Flowers

White 20 to 25 cm long, its tube slender, 10 cm. long; uppermost scales green, short; outer perianth-segments lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 6 to 7 cm. long, short apiculate, tinged with purple; inner perianth-segments much thinner than the outer ones, white, oblong-lanceolate, 7 to 8 cm long; stamens very numerous; style green.

Spines

On young branches wanting or few, very short (2 to 3 mm long), but on old branchesoften 8 to 10 or perhaps more in a cluster, very unequal, the longest ones to 6 cm long, whenyoung brown, but lighter in age.

Ribs

Usually 6 but sometimes only 4 or 5, occasionally 7, thin with wavy margins, 3 to 5 cm high, the margins undulate.

Stem

It forms a trunk 30-40 cm in diameter usually branching near the base. Branches cylindrical, usually strict and erect, but in old plants more spreading, made up of short joints 12 cm or more in diameter or more, glaucescent or light green.

Fruits

Ovoid, 5.5 to 13 cm long, somewhat oblique, truncate or a little depressed at apex, pale red, a little glaucous, bearing small scattered areoles; rind thick; pulp white or pinkish, edible.

Areoles

About 2 cm apart, small, felted.