Xerophyte

Description

Hatiora salicornioidesSN|22941]]SN|22941]] is a slender, erect, arching or somewhat pendent, bushy, cactus with unique jointed stems and many small yellow-orange flowers. It can be either epiphytic or terrestrial, but is commonly grown as a foliage plant. It has the common name of 'Drunkard's Dream' from the resemblance of the stem sections to bottles of beer. The plant is made of many-branched stems and reaches 30-60(-100) cm in height and spread. It is said that it deserves first place among the Cacti of easy culture.

Note

Hatiora salicornioidesSN|22941]]SN|22941]] is extremely variable and probably deserves subdivision into infraspecific taxa.

Flowers

Always terminal at tips of younger stem segments, small, bell-shaped orange yellow or light salmon, 1-2 cm long and in diameter.

Blooming Season

Late winter to early spring.

Chromosome Number

Hatiora salicornioidesSN|22941]]SN|22941]] is a diploid species with a chromosome number of 2n = 2x = 22 .

Spines

Usually absent, but rarely produced, sometimes towards the base of relatively old stems or, in atavistic fashion, on isolated stem segments.

Stem

Joined, becoming woody, very copiously branched. Branchlets (stem-segments) of strictly determinate growth, tiny, pale green to deep green, leaf-less and spineless (1,5-)2-3(-5) cm long, 3-4 mm in diameter, narrow, club-shaped, with a distinct basal neck and expanded tips, looking like an inverted bottle, arising in whorls of two to six from tops of older ones and growing upright for some time before sprawling under their own weight.

Fruits

White, translucent, top shaped berries.

Areoles

Joints have a large woolly composite areole with short bristles at tips of branches from which the flowers and succeeding cladodes arise, the minuscle white spots visible on these stems are, technically, typical cactus areoles minus the spines.