Schlumbergera
| Schlumbergera | |
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| Cultivar belonging to the Schlumbergera Truncata Group | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Core eudicots |
| Order: | Caryophyllales |
| Family: | Cactaceae |
| Subfamily: | Cactoideae |
| Tribe: | Rhipsalideae |
| Genus: |
Schlumbergera Lem. |
| Species | |
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Schlumbergera is a small genus of cacti with six species found in the coastal mountains of south-eastern Brazil. Plants grow on trees or rocks in habitats that are generally shady with high humidity, and can be quite different in appearance from their desert-dwelling cousins. Most species of Schlumbergera have stems which resemble leaf-like pads joined one to the other and flowers which appear from areoles at the joints and tips of the stems. Two species have cylindrical stems more similar to other cacti. In Brazil, the genus is referred to as Flor de Maio (May flower), reflecting the period in which they flower in the Southern Hemisphere.
This genus contains the popular house plants known by a variety of names including Christmas cactus, Thanksgiving cactus, crab cactus and holiday cactus, which are Schlumbergera cultivars, and flower in white, pink, yellow, orange, red or purple. (The Easter cactus or Whitsun cactus, which may also be called a holiday cactus and has vivid scarlet flowers in the most commonly grown form, is now placed in the genus Hatiora.) The cultivars of Schlumbergera fall into two main groups:
Botanist Charles Lemaire (1801-1871) gave the name Schlumbergera to this genus in 1858, honouring Frédéric Schlumberger (1823-1893), a French collector of cacti and other succulent plants.
In the wild, the species of Schlumbergera grow either on trees (epiphytic) or on rocks (epilithic) and can form sizeable shrubs with woody bases; a height of up to 1.2 m (4 ft) has been reported for one species (S. opuntioides). They are leafless, the green stems acting as photosynthetic organs. The stems are composed of segments, which take one of two forms. In most species the segments are strongly flattened (cladodes), being made up of a central core with two (or more rarely three) "wings". Special structures characteristic of cacti, called "areoles", then occur at the ends of the segments of the stem. In two species the stems are less flattened, more cylinder-shaped, and the areoles are arranged in a more or less spiral pattern all over the segments. In both cases, the areoles, which may have wool and bristles, are where the flower buds appear.
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Wikipedia