| | The genera of Cactaceae |
Including Corryocereus Fric & Kreuz. (orth. var.), Erdisia Britton & Rose, Eulychnocactus Backeb. (nom. inval.)
The plants cerioid; not ‘low and very compacted’. The stems stoutly spiny; elongate cylindric; neither cephaliate nor pseudocephaliate. The plants terrestrial and self supporting, or scrambling; not producing aerial roots; freely branched (basally); prostrate, or erect (sometimes even rhizomatous); shrubby to tree-like; clustering (often forming large clumps); to 1–5 m high. The stems columnar, or not columnar. The main stem not remaining dominant. The branches stout or slender, cylindrical. The stems not segmented; prominently ribbed and grooved. The ribs 4–10; longitudinal. The grooves wide. The plants not conspicuously tuberculate. The areoles not tubercle-associated; distant; borne in longitudinal series; simple. The flowering areoles resembling the non-flowering ones. The areoles with spines. The spines clustered; (3–)8–20; 0.5–26 cm long; with radials and centrals differentiated, or showing little or no difference between radials and centrals (often). Central spines when manifest, 1–4. Radial spines 5–13. The spines sharp, stiff; mostly erect straight. The mature stems with much reduced leaves (C. brevistylus), or leafless.
Flowering during the day. The flowers solitary; lateral; one per areole; opening widely, broadly funnelform to campanulate; sessile; medium-sized to large; 4–10 cm long; regular. The receptacle conspicuously produced beyond the ovary into a tubular hypanthium (but the tube short). The pericarpel densely covered with small scales, the areoles with brown or black wool and spines. The hypanthial tube not S-shaped; not naked; with scales (these abundant, small). The axils of the scales of the hypanthial tube not naked (the areoles with brown or black wool and spines). The hypanthial tube with spines. The perianth parts short; yellow, or red; limb relatively large. The perianth segments fairly elongate, relatively narrow to relatively short, broad; pointed, or apiculate. Stamens adnate to the perianth (inserted in the broad throat); not grouped.
The mature fruit 1.5–8 cm long; globose; green (or reddish green), or yellow (ish), or red; naked to not naked; spiny (with deciduous tufts of needle-like spines), or without spines; without persistent floral remains; fleshy (edible); indehiscent. The seeds small; brown, or black; obliquely ovoid; not encased in bony arils; with a mucilage sheath, or without a mucilage sheath. The testa tuberculate, or rugose, or smooth, without ornamentation. Cotyledons reduced or vestigial.
Natural Distribution. Peru, Bolivia and Chile, mostly at higher altitudes.
Classification. About 15 species. Subfamily Cactoideae. Tribe Pachycereeae.
Cf. Hunt, 1967.
Images. • Corryocactus brevistylus and C. brachpetalus, habit: Britton & Rose (1920). • Corryocactus brevistylus and C. brachpetalus, flowers and fruit: Britton & Rose (1920).
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2018 onwards. The genera of Cactaceae: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 14th November 2021. delta-intkey.com’.
