Pachycereus pringlei
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Pachycereus pringlei |
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| ( S.Watson ) Britton & Rose |
Pachycereus pringlei is a species of plant in the genus Pachycereus from the cactus family(Cactaceae). The specific epithet pringlei honors the American botanist Cyrus Guernsey Pringle (1838–1911). Spanish common names are "Cardón", "Cardón pelón", "Sagueso" and "Sahuaso".
description
They are stem- like succulent, tree - like plants that usually reach heights of about 12 m. Occasionally specimens reach a height of over 19 m and thus form the largest cacti. Their trunks are 50 to 60 cm near the base, sometimes up to 1 meter in diameter in very old plants. The branches, which are set on a low trunk height, are about 20 to 30 cm thick. Trunks and branches are ten (mostly about 13) to 17 ribs. The brown areoles standing on the ribs are very large. In adult plants, they are connected by felt bands at the ends of the shoots. They carry about 20 to 30 thorns , which are indistinctly divided into radial spines and one to three central spines. At first the thorns are about 2 to 3 cm long, white to light gray with black tips, later they darken and become black. Thorns pushed in over time are coarse and up to 12 cm long. The areoles flow together and are thornless in the weakly developed and not very conspicuous cephala .
The flowers formed by the areoles of the cephalia open at night and stay open until about noon the following day. They are white, reddish on the outside, funnel-shaped to bell-shaped and up to 8 cm long. In the natural locations they appear in spring (March to June). After fertilization , spherical to slightly oval, densely tomentose-haired fruits with a diameter of up to 7 cm emerge , which when ripe tear open lengthways and often in a star shape. Within the fruits there are up to 800 black seeds in a pink to red, rarely white pulp .
distribution
The species occurs in the Mexican states of Baja California and Baja California Sur inland, in Sonora , Sinaloa and Nayarit near the sea and on some offshore islands.
ecology
Pachycereus pringlei is one of the rare "three-nosed" species in which both purely male, purely female and (self-compatible) hermaphroditic specimens occur.
Both the most important pollinator ( chiropterophilia ) of the flowers and the most important disseminator of the seeds is the blossom bat ( Leptonycteris curasoae ) , which overwinter in Mexico . Cactus species and bat species are directly dependent on each other.
In the Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN , the species is listed as " Least Concern (LC) ". H. listed as not endangered.
gallery
P. pringlei
P. pringlei Habitat
P. pringlei with an osprey nest
P. pringlei with flowers
P. pringlei flowers
fruit
Peel of a fruit
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literature
- Nathaniel Lord Britton, Joseph Nelson Rose: The Genus Cereus and its Allies in North America . In: Contributions from the United States National Herbarium . Volume 12, Number 10, 1909, p. 422 ( online )
Individual evidence
- ^ M. Salak: In search of the tallest cactus . In: Cactus and Succulent Journal . Volume 72, No. 3, 2000.
- ↑ Vinicio J. Sosa, Theodore H. Fleming: Seedling performance in a trioecious cactus, Pachycereus pringlei: Effects of maternity and paternity . In; Plant Systematics and Evolution . Volume 218, number 1-2, 1999, pp. 145-151, DOI: 10.1007 / BF01087042 .
- ↑ Pachycereus pringlei in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013.2. Posted by: Burquez Montijo, A., 2010. Retrieved January 25, 2014.
