Peniocereus greggii |
|||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Arizona queen-of-the-night, desert night-blooming cereus, nightblooming cereus, reina de la noche |
|||||
Habit | Shrubs, erect to sprawling, usually inconspicuous. | ||||
Roots | turnip-shaped, usually 15–30 × 5–12 cm (much larger ones known). |
||||
Stems | gray-green to gray, simple or with 2–5 branches, 40–120(–300) cm, distally 8–20 mm diam., at midlength ca. 10 mm diam., often narrowed toward base; wood hollow, solid-surfaced cylinders, 4–7 mm diam.; ribs 4–6, prominent; areoles (3.5–)12(–15) mm apart along ribs, circular to elliptic, 2–5 × 2 mm. |
||||
Spines | (9–)11–15(–17) per areole, usually in 3 vertical rows; abaxial 3–5 spines appressed, yellowish white throughout or only at tips, to 3 mm, puberulent when young; adaxial spines black, subulate, to 1 mm. |
||||
Flowers | nocturnal (remaining open next day), 15–25 cm; scales of flower tubes green, tipped red or brown; outer tepals greenish white with brown to reddish midstripes; inner tepals white or lightly tinged cream or pink (or rarely all rose-pink), lanceolate-attenuate, apiculate, 4–7 cm, attenuate to mucronate; stamens 2.5 cm; anthers cream-yellow, 2 mm; style white, 10–14 cm; stigma lobes 9–11, white. |
||||
Fruits | bright red, darkening in age, ellipsoid, 60–90 × 40–50 mm. |
||||
Seeds | 3–4 × 2–2.5 mm. |
||||
2n | = 22. |
||||
Peniocereus greggii |
|||||
Distribution |
AZ; NM; TX; w Mexico
|
||||
Discussion | Varieties 2 (2 in the flora). (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
||||
Key |
|
||||
Source | FNA vol. 4, p. 156. | ||||
Parent taxa | Cactaceae > subfam. Cactoideae > Peniocereus | ||||
Sibling taxa | |||||
Subordinate taxa | |||||
Synonyms | Cereus greggii | ||||
Name authority | (Engelmann) Britton & Rose: Contr. U.S. Natl. Herb. 12: 428. (1909) | ||||
Web links |