Melocactus
Melocactus glaucescens with clearly pronounced reddish- white cephalium at the top of the gray-green body.
Melocactus is a genus of flowering plants of the cactus family ( Cactaceae ). The botanical name of the genus is derived from the Greek noun " μηλον " (Melon ) for apple or melon and refers to the size and shape of the plant body.
Description
The depressed spherical to cylindrical -growing species of the genus Melocactus reach stature heights of less than one meter. The shoots consist of 8 to 27 vertical ribs, which are not divided into warts or bumps. On them sit small to large areolae from which 3 to 21 (or more) spikes arise, which hardly can be divided into central and radial spines, which are sometimes hooked in young plants. After the completion of vegetative growth in the youth phase, a terminal cephalium is emerging, consisting of wool hairs and bristles.
The short-lived, small flowers appear from the cephalium. They are tubular, red to pink and bald.
The short and long club-shaped, juicy fruits are bald. You can be white, pink, magenta or reddish flowers and wearing a persistent radical. The fruits contain black, spherical to ovoid seeds.
Dissemination
The distribution of the genus Melocactus extends from western Mexico south through Central America to Ecuador and to the south of Peru. In the east it extends to Venezuela and eastern Brazil and includes the Caribbean.
System
The type species of the genus Cactus melocactus. The genus Melocactus include the following types:
- Melocactus × albicephalus natural hybrid between Melocactus ernestii and Melocactus glaucescens
- Melocactus andinus Melocactus andinus subsp. andinus
- Melocactus andinus subsp. hernandezii
- Melocactus azureus subsp. azureus
- Melocactus azureus subsp. ferreophilus
- Melocactus bahiensis subsp. bahiensis
- Melocactus bahiensis subsp. amethystinus
- Melocactus bellavistensis subsp. bellavistensis
- Melocactus bellavistensis subsp. onychacanthus
- Melocactus curvispinus subsp. curvispinus
- Melocactus curvispinus subsp. caesius
- Melocactus curvispinus subsp. dawsonii
- Melocactus curvispinus subsp. koolwijkianus
- Melocactus ernestii subsp. ernestii
- Melocactus ernestii subsp. longicarpus
- Melocactus intortus subsp. intortus
- Melocactus intortus subsp. domingensis
- Melocactus oreas subsp. oreas
- Melocactus oreas subsp. cremnophilus
- Melocactus pachyacanthus subsp. pachyacanthus
- Melocactus pachyacanthus subsp. viridis
- Melocactus schatzlii subsp. schatzlii
- Melocactus schatzlii subsp. chicamochaensis
- Melocactus violaceus subsp. violaceus
- Melocactus violaceus subsp. margaritaceus
- Melocactus violaceus subsp. ritteri
Botanical history
Species of the genus Melocactus are among the first species of cactus that went to Europe. An early illustration and description as Echinomelocactos is located in Charles de l' Écluses Exoticorum of 1605th Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in his shortened 1694 Elemens de botanique the spelling to Melocactus and gave a first class description. Linnaeus took in 1753 in Species Plantarum all cacti species under the genus Cactus together, including the type Cactus melocactus, which is the type species of the genus today and was only in 1991 described as valid Melocactus caroli - linnaei. 1827 described Heinrich Friedrich Link and Christoph Friedrich Otto the genus in its present form.