Tacinga
Tacinga funalis flowers
Tacinga is a genus of flowering plants of the cactus family ( Cactaceae ). The botanical name of the genus is an anagram of the word " Catinga ", the distribution of the genus in the Brazilian Caatinga.
Description
The species of the genus Tacinga grow shrubby, are sometimes weak climbing or crawling. The green shoots are round and stock -like, sometimes slightly depressed or round, oblong or elliptical, somewhat flattened in cross section. They can be structured and woody with age. The sharply formed leaves are small, slender and cylindrical. From the black, trimmed with spring glochids areoles 2 to 3 short spines that may be missing and also fall soon.
The pale yellow -green to purple to brown mottled flowers grow along the segment edges or near the shoot tip. They open on the day or are open during the day and at night. The spherical to elongated, instinctive Perikarpell is studded with tiny scales and glochids bearing areoles.
The spherical to oblong, fleshy fruits are green, white, brownish or reddish. The flowers rest falls off quickly. They contain whitish, almost spherical to pear- shaped seeds, which laterally compressed a little and are 3 to 4 millimeters long.
Systematics and distribution
The species of the genus Tacinga are used in the Caatinga vegetation in the east and north-east of Brazil.
The first description of the then monotypic genus was published by Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose 1919. The type species of the genus is Tacinga funalis. Belong to the genus of the following types:
- Tacinga braunii
- Tacinga funalis
- Tacinga inamoena Tacinga inamoena subsp. inamoena
- Tacinga inamoena subsp. subcylindrica
- Tacinga saxatilis subsp. saxatilis
- Tacinga saxatilis subsp. estevesii