(Last Modified On 11/29/2012)
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(Last Modified On 11/29/2012)
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Genus
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NOPALEA Salm-Dyck
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PlaceOfPublication
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Cact. Hort. Dyck. 1849:63. 1850
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Reference
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Britton & Rose, in Carnegie Inst. Wash. Publ. No. 248. 1:33. 1919.
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Description
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Massive succulent shrubs; stems phylloid and jointed when young, the joints fleshy, compressed, oval to oblong-elliptic, bearing amphigenous and rather sparse areoles armed with hairs and glochids and usually 1 to few stout spines, stoutly cylindric when older. Leaves inconspicuous, acicular, fugacious. Flowers sessile, solitary, chiefly marginal upon the young stem joints; perianth shortly campanu- late, with a short and broad hypanthium, the segments rather few, the outer somewhat shorter and less petaloid than the inner, erect or very slightly spreading; stamens very numerous, the filaments much longer than the perianth, united in graded series at the base of the hypanthium in a shallow, glandular-dentate cup; ovary broadly turbinate, deeply concave, more or less tuberculate, the areoles very prominent; style longer than the stamens, enlarged shortly above the base into a conspicuous disciform stylopodium. Fruit a fleshy berry with numerous seeds.
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Habit
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shrub
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Distribution
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About a dozen species of the Antilles and Central America. The two species of Panama, if they are species indeed, both appear to have been introduced, although Britton and Rose considered N. dejecta as "perhaps native in Panama."
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Key
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a. Areoles without spines or nearly so; ovary and berries prominently tuberculate ........................1. N. COCHENILLIFERA aa. Areoles with 2-8 stout spies; ovary and berries scarcely tuberculate ....... 2. N. DEJECTA
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