Truncated Brazilian Christmas Cactus: Parent to Cultivated Hybrids

Summary: Truncated Brazilian Christmas cactus is the wild parent to three commercially successful cultivated hybrids that inspire holiday plant-lovers every year.

indoor Schlumbergera truncata plants with orange, pink and red flowers; January 2017: Maja Dumat (blumenbiene), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr

Truncated Brazilian Christmas cactus accepts commercially successful, cultivated hybridization with Orssich, padded stem and Russell Christmas cacti, three of coastal and near-coastal southeastern Brazil's five other cool weather-loving, high-altitude, moisture-tolerant, related cactuses.

Truncated cactus, with its Mata Atlântica (Atlantic Forest) address and branching, jointed stems, bears little resemblance to the barrel-bodied icons of North America's droughty Old Southwest. It calls home rocky crevices as an epilith, and shaded branches as an epiphyte, in lush, mountainous, nutrient-rich forests unlike the Old Southwest's nutrient-poor, sandy soils. Its green, leafless exteriors, like those of its bristly, hairy, spiny, woolly Northern Hemisphere counterparts, direct photosynthetic interactions with carbon dioxide, chlorophyll, sunlight and water vapor.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) enters vulnerable status alerts for truncated Brazilian Christmas cactus because of the endemic's exclusive, legally protected habitat occurrence.

French collector Frédéric Schlumberger (April 19, 1823-Feb. 21, 1893) and its flattened, jointed, segmented stems' non-pointed, toothed, truncated ends furnish truncated cactus's scientific name Schlumbergera truncata.

Dark, glossy green, 1.6- to 2.4-inch- (4- to 6-centimeter-) long, 0.6- to 1.4-inch- (1.5- to 3.5-centimeter-) wide segments get two to three terminal, variously shaped teeth. Specialized structures called areoles, with brown-wooled, 1-inch- (2.54-millimeter-) long bristles, at segment edges and ends, hold buds and 2.36- to 3.15-inch- (6- to 8-centimeter-) long flowers. Brown-wooled, terminal areoles, with 1-inch- (2.54-millimeter-) long bristles, hold 2.36- to 3.15-inch- (6- to 8-centimeter-) long flowers 1.58 to 2.36 inches (4 to 6 centimeters) across. Truncated cactus flowers, with undifferentiated petals and sepals called tepals, incline above the horizontal in a bilateral symmetry called zygomorphism of different higher and lower sides.

Truncated Brazilian Christmas cactus flowers join six to eight backward-bending tepals into base-fused, inner, longer series at the tips and outer, shorter series at the bases.

The inner tepals keep together the hummingbird-friendly, nectar-filled, 0.79-inch- (2-centimeter-) long floral tube, which keeps company with the outer of two series of truncated cactus stamens.

Magenta styles with six- to eight-lobed styles and inner stamens with white filaments and yellow anthers and pollen lead to May bloom times in southeast Brazil. Naturalization-friendly niches for cultivated hybrids and varieties moved to the Northern Hemisphere mean common names as the Thanksgiving cactus from induced October to November bloom times. Bloom times nudge truncated cactus into stages of pear-shaped, red, 0.47- to 0.9-inch- (1.2- to 2.3-centimeter-) long berries and of shiny black, 0.04-inch- (1-millimeter-) long seeds.

Truncated Brazilian Christmas cactus owes fleshy fruit to pollinating hummingbirds and germinating seeds to bird dispersal at altitudes from sea level up 4,265.09 feet (1,300 meters).

Ten locations within a 2,702.72-square-mile (7,000-square-kilometer) area including Parque Nacional Floresta da Tijuca, Serra dos Órgãos and Serra do Mar provide granite, gneiss and tree homes.

Truncated cactus, described by botanists Adrian Hardy Haworth (April 19, 1767-Aug. 24, 1833) and Reid Venable Moran (June 30, 1916-Jan. 21, 2010), qualifies for vulnerability alerts. Cultivated Buckleyi (Schlumbergera x buckleyi) hybrids of Russell and truncated cacti, described by T. Moore and William Louis Tjaden, revel in sustainability unknown to either parent. Cultivated Exotica (S. x exotica) hybrids of padded stem and truncated cacti, described by Wilhelm A. Barthlott and Werner Rauh, shows a similar household, worldwide recognition.

Cultivated Reginae (S. x reginae) hybrids with Orssich's cacti, described by A.J.S. McMillan, take truncated cactus characteristics well outside their native state of Rio de Janeiro.

Schlumbergera truncata flowering outdoors in early December in Florida; Dec. 9, 2014: JennTM, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Acknowledgment

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

Image credits:

indoor Schlumbergera truncata plants with orange, pink and red flowers; January 2017: Maja Dumat (blumenbiene), CC BY 2.0, via Flickr @ https://www.flickr.com/photos/blumenbiene/31703609554/

Schlumbergera truncata flowering outdoors in early December in Florida; Dec. 9, 2014: JennTM, CC BY SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schlumbergera_Truncata.jpg

For further information:

Combernoux, Michel. "History of Schlumbergera orssichiana and Its Hybrids." Epiphytic Cacti.
Available @ http://cactus-epiphytes.eu/z_page_histoire_schl_orss_et_hybrides_1.htm

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

"Schlumbergera truncata - Christmas Cactus." Encyclopedia of Life.
Available @ http://eol.org/pages/588963/overview

"Schlumbergera truncata (Haw.) Moran." Tropicos® > Name Search.
Available @ http://www.tropicos.org/Name/5100450

"Schlumbergera truncata (Haworth) Moran in Gentes Herb. 8: 329 (1953)." Rhipsalis.com.
Available @ http://www.rhipsalis.com/species/truncata.htm

"Schlumbergera truncata (Syn: Zigocactus truncatus)." Cactus Art > Cactus Art Encyclopedia > Cactuspedia > Schlumbergera.
Available @ http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/152554/0

Taylor, N.P.; and Zappi, D. 2013. "Schlumbergera truncata." The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013: e. T152554A650443. http://dx.doi/org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2013-1.RLTS.T151940A578806.en.
Available @ http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/151940/0