Brazil prickleypear (Brasiliopuntia brasiliensis)

Description

Brasiliopuntia brasiliensis is the only plant of the monotypic genus Brasiliopuntia in the cactus family(Cactaceae). The botanical name of the genus and the specific epithet brasiliensis refer to the original site in Brazil . Trivial names are Urumbeba, Mumbeca, Mumbebo, Facho de Renda, Palmatória Grande, Palmatória do Diabo, Ambeba, Arumbeva, Gerumbeba, Jurubeba, and Xiquexique de Sertao ". The upright, tree-like Brasiliopuntia brasiliensis reaches a height of 20 meters (or more). She has a pronounced, thorny trunk. The intermediate segments are cylindrical and 20 to 100 inches long. The light to dark green end segments are rhomboid to ovate, of unequal shape, narrow at the base and produce leaf-like sprouts or flax shoots. The fleshy, light green leaves are small and fall off soon. The areoles have white hair and later get glochids . The 1 to 3 spines , which may be missing, are thin, reddish and up to 15 millimeters long. The yellow flowers appear near the top or terminal of the thin-fleshed segments or from the pericarp of old flowers, open during the day and are up to 6 inches long. Between the perianth and the stamens are hair-like staminodes . The spherical to pear-shaped to elongated, fleshy fruits are yellow, orange-red, red or purple, have a diameter of 3 to 4 centimeters and bear striking tufts of dark brown glochids . They contain 1 to 5, very large (6.5 to 10 millimeters), thick, disc-like, laterally compressed, woolly seeds . Brasiliopuntia brasiliensis is widespread in South America . It occurs in Brazil , Paraguay , eastern Bolivia , Peru and northern Argentina . It is naturalized in different places, for example Florida . Karl Moritz Schumann described in 1898 the genus as a subgenus of the Opuntia . Already Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose in 1919 considered the possibility of a separate genus. Finally, in 1926, Alwin Berger elevated it to the rank of an independent genus. The first description as Cactus brasiliensis was made already in 1814 by Carl Ludwig Willdenow . Brasiliopuntia brasiliensis is in the Red List of Threatened Species of IUCN as " Least Concern (LC) ", d. H. not classified as endangered.