Pereskia bleo

Pereskia bleo
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
(unranked): Angiosperms
(unranked): Eudicots
(unranked): Core eudicots
Order: Caryophyllales
Family: Cactaceae
Genus: Pereskia
Species: P. bleo
Binomial name
Pereskia bleo
(Kunth) DC.
Synonyms
  • Pereskia corrugata
  • Pereskia cruenta
  • Pereskia panamensis
  • Rhodocactus bleo
  • Rhodocactus corrugatus
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Leuenbergeria bleo.

Pereskia bleo (rose cactus, leaf cactus) is a leafy cactus, native to the shady, moist forests of Central America, that grows to a woody, prickly shrub about 2 m tall with large, orange flowers resembling rose blossoms.

Description

Pereskia bleo grows as a shrub or small tree and reaches a height of 2 to 8 metres with trunks up to 15 centimetres in diameter. The olive-green to brownish grey branches are smooth. The leaves are arranged alternately on the branches and are distinctly stalked with petioles up to 3 centimetres long. The leaf blade is 6 to 20 centimetres long and 2 to 7 centimetres wide, elliptic to oblong or lanceolate in shape. The five nerved leaf blades have four to six, often fork-shaped, side lobes. The thorns are either parallel in bundles or spread widely out. Long thorns on the branches are up to five to ten millimetres long. Along the main shoots there are up to 40 spines per areole, each 2 centimetres long.

The flowers are arranged in terminal lateral inflorescences. The bare, bright red, scarlet, salmon pink and orange-red-pink flowers reach diameters of 4 to 6 centimeters.

The fruits are more or less spherical, ripening yellow. They are edible but sour tasting.

Taxonomy

The first description of the species, as Cactus bleo, was in 1823 by Karl Sigismund Kunth. Augustin Pyramus de Candolle made it the type species of the genus Pereskia in 1828. A synonym is Rhodocactus bleo (Kunth) F.M.Knuth.

Distribution and habitat

Pereskia bleo is found by rivers and streams in Panama and Colombia as well as in secondary forest, from sea level to altitudes of 1300 metres.

The Red List of Threatened Species of the IUCN lists the species as "Least Concern (LC)" or not at risk.

References