Rhipsalis pachyptera

Rhipsalis pachyptera Pfeiffer, Enum. Cact. 132. (1837)

Top row, second from left, taken at Huntington Botanical Gardens, 9/99 KAF.
Top row, far right, by Derek Butcher, opens in another window.

R. pachyptera Pfeiffera is a flat-leafed species with wide leaves and wavy or nothced margins. More than one flower can grow from the areoles--yellowish to white. Fruit is red. Rio De Janiero.

Plant - stems much jointed, pendent;
Joints - often 3 to 6 dm. long, 5 to 7 cm. broad, thickish, stiff, sometimes nearly orbicular, often purple, deeply crenate;
Flowers - numerous, but solitary, rarely 2 to 4 from the areole, large;
Petals - widely spreading, yellowish;
Stamens - numerous; stigma-lobes 4 or 5, slender;
Fruit - globose, white.

DISTRIBUTION. Brazil (Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul): epiphytic and epilithic in Atlantic forest, common at low elevations.

Typical R. pachyptera is a primarily coastal plant, but a somewhat different form, at times resembling R. oblonga, with narrower, elongate. cuneate stem-segments, and restricted to the Serra dos Orgaos, at up to 1800 m elevation (Rio de Janeiro state), is also provisionally included in our present concept. It is possible that this merits recognition as a subspecies or, when better known, will demand altogether separate status. The same applies to another form collected by Werner Uebelmann near Agudo, Rio Grande do Sul (in cultivation at Bonn, accn. no.06525), representing an unusual, slender-stemmed, multi-winged variant, which superficially resembles R. russellii.