Padded Stem Brazilian Christmas Cactus: Parent to Cultivated Hybrids

Summary: Padded stem Brazilian Christmas cactus calls collectors and tourists to high altitudes and creates cultivated hybrids with Russell's and truncated cacti.

padded stem Brazilian Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera opuntioides); Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011: sadambio, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons

Padded stem Brazilian Christmas cactus accounts for one of the Federative Republic's six high-altitude, wild cacti and appears as one of the four that accept cultivated hybridization into commercially successful, holiday-blooming cacti.

Coastal and near-coastal mountainous southeast Brazil's padded stem cacti bear many stems, like their five other moisture-loving relatives, and padded segments, reminiscent of drought-loving Opuntia cactuses. They claim seven native locations exclusively within the coastal states of Rio de Janeiro and of São Paulo and within the inland state of Minas Gerais. They demand rocky, tree-filled niches in the cool, humid, lofty mata de neblina (cloud forest) 5,600 to 7,900 feet (1,700 to 2,400 meters) above sea level.

Declining populations and decreased coverage because of illegal collection and habitat loss elicit near threatened status alerts from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Padded stem cacti fit into the Schlumbergera genus, named for French collector Frédéric Schlumberger (Apr. 19, 1823-Feb. 18, 1893), with four hybridized and five wild relatives.

Southeast Brazil's padded stem cactuses get the species name opuntioides because of their mature, padded segments recalling the bigger, thicker pads on the Opuntia cactus genus. Their leafless stems harbor growth tendencies toward maximum heights of 3.93 feet (1.2 meters), have somewhat flattened segments when fresher and younger and hold photosynthetic organs. They include many specialized structures called areoles, whose bristles indicate age by stiffening with maturity, along the edges and at the ends of their green segments.

Mature padded stem Brazilian Christmas cactus juggles many 0.59- to 2.76-inch- (1.5- to 7.0-centimeter-) long, 0.19- to 1.18-inch- (0.5- to 3.0-centimeter-) wide, 0.35-inch- (9-millimeter-) thick stems.

Southeast Brazilian padded stem cacti keep their floral buds and their tubular flowers, which know only horizontal arrangements, in the terminal areoles on their segmented stems.

A bilateral asymmetry called zygomorphism leaves lower and upper sides different on mature, pink to purple, 2.36-inch- (6-centimeter-) long flowers 1.77 inches (4.5 centimeters) in diameter. The flower tip-located, inner, longer series of 20 to 30 undifferentiated petals and sepals called tepals merge basally into the pollinating hummingbird-friendly, nectar-filled, white floral tube. Outer, short, sometimes backward-curving, sometimes spread-out, unconnected tepals nudge floral bases while inner and base-merged outer stamens respectively nestle along floral tubes and into tubular structures.

Padded stem Brazilian Christmas cactus, described by Swedish botanist John Albert Constantin Löfgren (Sept. 11, 1854-Aug. 30, 1918), offers red styles and six- to eight-lobed stigmas.

Four- to five-ribbed, green, spherical padded stem cactus fruits produce black to brown, 0.07-inch (1.75-millimeter-) long seeds on less than 193.05 square miles (500 square kilometers).

Minas Gerais's Serra do Ibitipoca, Rio de Janeiro's Serra de Itatiaia and São Paulo's Serra do Mantiqueira qualify as legally protected prime viewing locations for cacti. Padded stem cactuses, described by Swedish botanist Per Karl Hjalmar Dusén (Aug. 4, 1855-Jan. 22, 1926) and, in 1969, by David R. Hunt, remain somewhat hybridizable. They serve as parents, with truncated cacti (Schlumbergera truncata) to the exotic Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera x exotica) group described by Wilhelm A. Barthlott and A.J.S. McMillan.

Padded stem Brazilian Christmas cactus tender collectors and tourists cloud-forest colors that, like Kautsky's cactus (Schlumbergera kautskyi), thrive in March and April as Northern Hemisphere transplants.

illustration of Schlumbergera opuntioides as Zygocactus opuntioides Löfg.; Alberto Löfgren, Archivos do Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro (1917): Biodiversity Heritage Library (BioDivLibrary), Public Domain, via Flickr

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

padded stem Brazilian Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera opuntioides); Saturday, Feb. 26, 2011: sadambio, CC BY SA 3.0 Unported, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://hu.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fájl:Schlumbergera_opuntioides.JPG

illustration of Schlumbergera opuntioides as Zygocactus opuntioides Löfg.; Alberto Löfgren, Archivos do Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro (1917), Estampa IV: Biodiversity Heritage Library, Public Domain, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/61021753@N02/7747289146/;
Public Domain, via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31211434

For further information:

Dusén, P. (Per Karl Hjalmar). 1905. "Epiphyllum opuntioides Loefgren et Dus. n. sp." Pages 49-50. In "Sur la Flor de la Serra do Itatiaya," Archivos do Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, vol. 13: 1-119.
Available @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/27146810

"Epipyllum opuntioides Loefgr. & Dusén." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/5107379

Hunt, D.R. (David Richard). 1969. "Contributions to the Flora of Tropical America: LXXVII: A Synopsis of Schlumbergera Lem. (Cactaceae)." Kew Bulletin, vol. 23, no. 2: 255-263.
Available @ http://www.jstor.org/stable/4108963?

Löfgren, Alberto. 1917. "Zygocactus opuntioides Löfg (Estampa IV)." Pages 26-28. In "Novas Contribuições para as Cactaceas Brasileiras Sobre os Generos Zygocactus e Schlumbergera," Archivos do Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro, vol. II: 19-32.
Available via Biodiversity Heritage Library @ http://biodiversitylibrary.org/page/31211425

McMillan, A.J.S.; and Horobin, J.F. 1995. Christmas Cacti: The Genus Schlumbergera and Its Hybrids. Sherbourne, Dorset: David Hunt.

"Schlumbergera opuntioides - Christmas Cactus." Encyclopedia of Life.
Available @ http://eol.org/pages/5184922/hierarchy_entries/57218682/overview

"Schlumbergera opuntioides (Lofgren and Dusen). Hunt in Kew Bull. 23:260 (1969)." Rhipsalis.com.
Available @ http://rhipsalis.com/species/opunt.htm

"Schlumbergera opuntioides (Loefgr. & Dusén) D.R. Hunt." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/5107378

Taylor, N.P.; and Zappi, D. 2013. "Schlumbergera opuntioides." The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013: e. T40875A2939603. http://dx.doi/org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T40875A2939603.en.
Available @ http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/40873/0