Original Description: The Cactaceae 2
p.206 - Britton & Rose (1920)A very slender vine, 6 meters long or more, 8 mm in diameter, freely giving off long slender aerial roots, dark green with the ribs more or less purplish, the scaly leaves at tips of branches minute, pinkish; ribs 7 or 8 low, obtuse, separated by low broad intervals; areoles 1 to 2 cm apart, small, bearing white wool and minute spines; spines 5 or 6, minute, the two lower ones longer and reflexed, 1 to 2 cm long; the other spines conic, greenish to black; flower-buds small, oblong, long-acuminate; flower opening at night, 15 cm long, 15 cm broad from tip to tip of the outer perianth-segments; tube and throat 6 cm long, purplish green without, narrowly funnelform, bearing a few slightly elevated areoles, these white-felted and bearing one or two minute spines, the scales on the tube minute but those on the throat lanceolate, 3 to 10 mm long, covered with stamens; outer perianth-segments 12 to 14, greenish yellow or the outer ones purplish on the back, widely spreading, linear to linear-lanceolate, acute; inner perianth-segments pure white except the outermost ones and these greenish, together forming a campanulate corolla; segments broadly spatulate, 4 to 5 cm long, obtuse; stamens numerous, slender, weak and somewhat declining on the perianth-segments, cream-colored; style slender, weak, cream-colored; stigma-lobes 9, linear, cream-colored; ovary bearing numerous rather large areoles, these white-felted and with 1 to 3 spines but no long hairs. |