Jasminocereus
| Jasminocereus | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Order: | Caryophyllales |
| Family: | Cactaceae |
| Subfamily: | Cactoideae |
| Genus: |
Jasminocereus Britton & Rose |
| Species: | J. thouarsii |
| Binomial name | |
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Jasminocereus thouarsii (F.A.C.Weber) Backeb. |
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| Synonyms | |
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Jasminocereus (meaning "jasmine-like cereus", referring to the flowers) is a genus of cacti with only one species, Jasminocereus thouarsii, endemic to the Galápagos Islands, territorially a part of Ecuador. In English it is often called the candelabra cactus (a name used for other cacti with a similar appearance). At maturity it has a branched, treelike habit, and may be up to 7 m (23 ft) tall. The stems are made up of individual sections with constrictions between them. Its creamy white to greenish flowers open at night and are followed by greenish to reddish fruits.
Jasminocereus thouarsiii is a leafless treelike cactus growing to 7 m (23 ft) tall, with green or greenish yellow branching stems made up of individual sections 10–50 cm (4–20 in) long. The trunk and branches have 11–22 ribs. The areoles have up to 35 spines, each up to 9 cm (3 1⁄2 in) long. The spines vary in colour from white through to black, darkening with age. The flowers, borne singly, open at night, and are up to 6 cm (2 1⁄4 in) across, with many creamy white to yellow or olive green petals and numerous stamens. The fruit is a berry, greenish to reddish purple in colour, containing many black seeds. Three varieties are recognized by some sources; they are said to vary in height, flower texture and fruit colour, among other features.
Three varieties are sometimes recognized:
Following David Hunt et al. in 2006, the IUCN Red List does not recognize any varieties.
Growth habit
Stems
Flower
Fruit
The nomenclature of the genus and species is somewhat tangled. In 1899, Frédéric Weber described two species, Cereus thouarsii and Cereus galapagensis. His descriptions are brief and refer in part to information received from others; he also notes that neither the flowers nor the fruit of Cereus galapagensis were known. The specific epithet thouarsii refers to Abel Aubert Dupetit Thouars, who found both species some 30 years earlier when his ship visited the Galápagos. In 1920, Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose erected the genus Brachycereus, synonymizing both Weber's Cereus thouarsii and another cactus from the Galápagos, Cereus nesioticus, under the name Brachycereus thouarsii. They placed Weber's Cereus galapagensis in a separate new genus, Jasminocereus, as Jasminocereus galapagensis. In 1935, Curt Backeberg realized that only Cereus nesioticus was the Brachycereus of Britton and Rose, and later placed Weber's Cereus thouarsii in Jasminocereus. In 1971, Anderson and Walkington carried out fieldwork and studied herbarium material, and decided that Weber's two species were actually the juvenile and mature forms of the same species. The earliest epithet for the species is thouarsii.
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