QL235 .R5 B7 1909 Britton, N L Rhipsalis in the West Indies CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN— No. 124 RHIPSALIS IN THE WEST INDIES By N. L. BRITTON NEW YOKK 1909 Reprinted, without change ot paging, from Tokeeya 9: 153-160. 3 Au 1909. 87 Ifof LIBRARY NEW YORK BOTANICAL, RHIPSALIS IN THE WEST INDIES* By N. L. Britton Rhipsalis is a genus of leafless jointed cacti, with round, angled, or flat branches and small flowers, consisting of numerous spe- cies, mostly natives of tropical America, but a few species occur in eastern tropical Africa and the widely distributed R. CassutJia grows also in Ceylon. In this Old World distribution the genus differs from all other cacti, the family being otherwise American in distribution, except for several Opuntias, which have become naturalized in southern Europe and northern Africa. These African species are of great interest from the standpoint of geographic distribution because they are the only cacti native in any part of the Old World. From the large preponderance of species in America it seems certain that the ancestors of the African kinds must have been transported from the American tropics to those of Africa in past geologic time, and the method of transportation, unless there was land connection between the continents, can only be guessed at. There are many genera in other families of plants common to thQ American and African tropics, however, and this indicates the probability of former land connection, over which their ancestors might have spread by well-known natural means. The genus was established by Gaertner (Fruct. & Sem. I : 137. 1788), the type species being R. Cassutha Gaertn. Adan- son (Fam. PI. 2 : 243. 1763) had previously proposed the generic name Hariota, for presumably the same species (Plumier,. Plant. Amer. 190, pi. 19 7. f. 2), and this figure is cited by Linnaeus (Syst. ed. 10, 1054. 1759) under Cactus parasiticus, but Linnaeus at the same place, and before his citation of Plumier's figure, * Illustrated with the aid of the Catherine McManes Fund. 153 154 cites Sloane, Jamaica, pi. 22^.. f. j and ,/, which is a species of Vanilla, probably V. Egg.rsiana Rolfe. Inasmuch as Adanson did not typify Hariota binominal ly, and as the type of Cactus parasiticus L. is a Vanilla, it would appear that the name Hariota must be passed over, although it was taken up by Dr. Otto Kuntze (Rev. Gen. PI. 261. i89i),and the species of Rhipsalis Y\c. i. Rhipsrtla Gissutka Gaertn. Near Utuado, Porto Rico. Photographed by Dr. Marshall A. Howe. known to him transferred to it. Through Linnaeus's blunder of uniting two widely different plants, which he knew only from illustrations, we are apparently prevented from using the name Hariota, and the next oldest available generic name is Rhipsalis. The species of Rhipsalis are mainly epiphytic, drooping from 155 trees, though sometimes found on cliffs, and they are mesophytes rather than xerophytes, inhabiting moist or wet regions. Some of them bear spines or bristles at the areoles of young shoots, which usually fall away early, leaving the mature plants quite unarmed, but a few South American species bear spines even when mature. Their flowers are whitish, yellowish, or pink, often almost rotate when widely expanded, the pet ianth- segments few, the perianth-tube short or none ; the stamens are few or numerous and shorter than the perianth ; the fruits are globular or oblong, white or yellowish berries with a watery pulp full of small seeds. Three species are now known from the West Indies, which may be classified as follows : Joints terete, slender ( Eur/iipsatis). I. R. Cassutha. Joints flat [Phyllorhipsnlis). Joints 4-6 cm. wide; flowers 15 rnm. long; berry oblong. 2. R. alatn. Joints I-2.5 cm- w'^e i flowers 6 mm. long ; berry subglobose. 3. R . jawnii ensis. i. Rhipsalis Cassutha Gaertn. Fr. & Sem. i : 137. 1788 Cassytha filiformis Mill. Gard. Diet. Ed. 8. 1768. Not L. Cactus parasiticus Lam. Encycl. 1 : 541. 1783. Not L. Cactus pen du his Sw. Fl. Ind. Occ. 2: 876. 1800. Cactus caripe u sis H.B.K. Nov. Gen. 6: 66. 1823. Cereus caripensis DC. Prodr. 3: 467. 1828. Rhipsalis parasiticus DC. Prodr. 3: 476. 1828. Cactus fa sen u I at us Willd. Enum. Snppl. 33. 1 8 1 3. Rlupsalis parasitica Haw. Syn. PI. Succ. 187. 18 [ 2. Rhipsalis fascial lata Haw. Suppl. 83. 18 19. Rhipsalis cassythoides G. Don, Gen. Syst. 3: 176. 1834. Rhipsalis dichotoma G. Don, Gen. Syst. 3 : 170. 1834. Rhipsalis undulata Pfeiff. Enum. 156. 1837. Rhipsalis Hookeriaua G. Don, Gen. Syst. 3: 176. 1834. Hariota parasitica Kuntze, Rev. Gen. PI. 262. 1891. Plant often 1 m. long or longer, much branched, light green, pendent from trees or on cliffs, the branches flexible ; flowers 6— 8 mm. long ; petals about 4, ovate, obtuse ; stamens about 9. [Figure i.] Type locality : Not cited. 156 Illustrations: Gaertri.'loc. cit.pl. 28. f. 1 ; Hook. Exot. Fl. I : pi. 2 ; Lodd. Bot. Cab. pi 863 ; Hot. Mag. pi. joyp, 3080 ; DC. PI. Grasses, //. 3p. Distribution: Cuba: Matanzas (Rugel 767; Britton & Shafer 430) ; Madruga {Britton & Shofer ySS) ; Calicita near Cienfuegos [Combs 470) ; vicinity of San Luis, Oriente [Pollard & Palmer 336 ; Maxon 4012). Haiti: Port Margot to Corneil (Nash 22S) ; La Brande to Mt. Balance (Nash & Taylor 1660). Porto Rico: Yauco (Garter 63 ; Sintems 3823); between Aibonito and Cayey (Heller 3 16) ; near Aibonito (Underwood & Griggs 488). Jamaica : near Rio Grande Ford, Cuna Cuna Trail (FreJholm 3207); Belvidere (Harris 7646); vicinity of Castleton (Maxon 836); Moneague (E. G. Britton 2936). San Luis Potosi, Mexico, to Costa Rica, Colombia, Bolivia, Vene- zuela, and Brazil. Tropical Africa. Mauritius. Ceylon. The young shoots are often quite bristly, but the mature plant becomes smooth ; flowers are sometimes developed before the bristles fall away. In the West Indies the plant has not been observed by me at a greater altitude than about 500 meters. 2. Rhipsalis alata (S\v.) Sclium. Fl. Bras. 42: 288. 1890 Cactus alatus Sw. Prodr. 77 . 1788. Cereus alatus DC. Prodr. 3 : 470. 1828. Rhipsalis Swartziqua Pfeiff. Enum. 131. 1837. Hariota alata Kuntze, Rev. Gen. PI. 262. 1891. Rhipsalis H arrisii Giirke, Monats. Kakt. 18: 180. 1908. Pendent from trees and on rocks, sometimes 5 meters long, with several long branches ; joints broadly linear, lanceolate or linear-oblong, often constricted at the middle or above it, bluntish at the apex, decurrent below into a stipe- like base, rather fleshy, bright green, about 1 mm. thick, 2-4 dm. long, 4-6 cm. wide, the midvein prominent and stout, the margins crenate-undulate, the lower crenations 1-2 cm. long, the upper ones 4-8 mm. long, the main lateral veins ending in the suiuscs ; flowers yellowish- white, about 15 mm. long; petals 10, lanceolate, acutish, the outer slightly longer than the- inner, erect and nearly parallel ; stamens numerous, about one half as long as the petals ; style slender, about three times as long as the five linear stigmas ; erry ovoid, rounded at both ends, yellow-gieen, 1 cm. long. [Figure 2.] Fig. 2. Khipsalis alata (Sw.) Schum. 158 Fig. 3. Rhipsalis jamaicensis Britton & Harris. 159 Jamaica: Woodstock, near Newmarket, Westmoreland {Brit- ton 1583; Harris ggg^)\ Belvidere, Hanover {Harris y6zg)-} Kempshot, Hanover {Britton & Hollick 2J.08) ; Mandeville, Man- chester {Britton 3751s). The plant flowers in autumn. This species has been misinterpreted by authors, commencing with Grisebach (Fl. Br. W. I. 302. i860) and the name alatns applied to the other somewhat similar plant of Jamaica to be described below. I have satisfactorily identified it from Swartz's description, and by the aid of a tracing of a type specimen pre- served in the herbarium of the British Museum of Natural History, kindly sent at my request by Mr. A. B. Rendle, and Professor Urban informs me that the Swartz specimen preserved in the Stockholm Herbarium is also certainly this species. The name Rhipsalis alata is to be found incidentally mentioned under Cereus alatns m Steudel, Nomencl. ed. 2, I : 333, published in 1 84 1, without any description of the plant referred to, and is therefore a hyponym to be disregarded. 3. Rhipsalis jamaicensis Britton & Harris, sp. nov. Pendent from trees, the young shoots quite bristly, the older joints smooth ; plant 3-10 dm. long, the main axis angular; joints 1-4 dm. long, 1—2.5 cm- wide, dull green, about 2 mm. thick, the apex bluntish, the base narrowed into a stipe 1-6 cm. long, the margins low-crenate ; flowers yellowish green, about 6 mm. long, the petals about 7, oblong to oblanceolate, not very widely expanding, obtusish ; ovary oblong, with a few scales ; stamens 20-24 ; style much longer than the three oblong stigmas; berry globose, white, 6-8 mm. in diameter. [Figure 3.] Jamaica : Troy, Cockpit Country {Britton 5//, type); vicinity of Troy {Maxon 2813); near Montpellier {E. G. Britton 2863); Bath to Cuna Cuna Gap {Britton 3302). In " Gesamtbeschreibung der Kakteen.," p. 636, the late Pro- fessor Schumann, erroneously describing this plant as Rhip- salis alata, refers the Costa Rican Rhipsalis coriacea Polak. Linnaea 41 : 562, 1877, to it as a synonym. This species is, perhaps, its closest relative, but after growing the two side by side at the New York Botanical Garden, I am convinced that they are distinct. 160 Visitors to the New York Botanical Garden will find the col- lection of Rliipsalis in Range I, House No. 7, of the public conservatories. I»XJBlL.IO-A.TIO]VS OF The New York Botanical Garden Journal ot the New York Botanical Garden, monthly, illustrated, con- taining notes, and non-technical articles of general interest. Free to members of the Garden. Toothers, 10 cents a copy; $1.00 a year. [Not offered in exchange.] Now in its tenth volume. 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