''Soehrensia candicans'' is a species of
cactus
A cactus (, or less commonly, cactus) is a member of the plant family Cactaceae, a family comprising about 127 genera with some 1750 known species of the order Caryophyllales. The word ''cactus'' derives, through Latin, from the Ancient Greek ...
from northern and western
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
(
Monte Desert
The Monte Desert is a South American desert, lying entirely within Argentina and covering approximately the submontane areas of Catamarca, La Rioja Province, Argentina, La Rioja, San Juan Province, Argentina, San Juan, San Luis Province, San Luis a ...
). It has large fragrant white flowers that open at night.
[, pp. 260–261]
Description
''Soehrensia candicans'' has a shrubby growth habit, with individual stems up to tall. The plant as a whole can be as much as across. The stems are light green, with a diameter of up to and have 9–11 low ribs. The large white
areole
In botany, areoles are small light- to dark-colored bumps on cacti out of which grow clusters of spines. Areoles are important diagnostic features of cacti, and identify them as a family distinct from other succulent plants. Gordon Rowley - W ...
s are spaced at and produce brownish yellow spines, the central spines being up to long, the radial spines only up to .
[
The fragrant white flowers open at night. They are large, up to across and long.][
]
Taxonomy
The species was first described in print by Joseph zu Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck
Joseph Franz Maria Anton Hubert Ignatz Fürst und Altgraf zu Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck (4 September 1773 at Castle Dyck near Neuss – 21 March 1861 in Nice) was a German amateur botanist and owner of Castle Dyck. Dyck was a member of an impor ...
in 1834 in his work ''Hortus Dyckensis'', where he attributed the name ''Cereus candicans'' to Gillies.[, p. 335.] In 1920, Britton and Rose
A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be ...
placed the species in ''Trichocereus
''Echinopsis'' is a large genus of cacti native to South America, sometimes known as hedgehog cactus, sea-urchin cactus or Easter lily cactus. One small species, ''E. chamaecereus'', is known as the peanut cactus. The 128 species range from lar ...
''.[ In a 1987 publication, David Hunt transferred the species to the genus ''Echinopsis'', attributing this placement to Frédéric Weber.][
] The broad circumscription
Circumscription may refer to:
*Circumscribed circle
*Circumscription (logic)
*Circumscription (taxonomy)
* Circumscription theory, a theory about the origins of the political state in the history of human evolution proposed by the American anthrop ...
of ''Echinopsis'' remains controversial; the genus is accepted not to be monophyletic
In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gro ...
.
Pharmacology
''Soehrensia candicans'' contains 0.5–5.0% Hordenine
Hordenine is an alkaloid of the phenethylamine class that occurs naturally in a variety of plants, taking its name from one of the most common, barley (''Hordeum'' species). Chemically, hordenine is the ''N''-methyl derivative (chemistry), derivat ...
References
External links
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{{Taxonbar, from=Q205933
Cacti of South America
Flora of Argentina
candicans
Plants described in 1834