Hatiora

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-01-10 08:43

Hatiora (lat. Hatiora) - a genus of epiphytic Brazilian cacti, one of four genera of the tribe Rhipsalideae (lat. Rhipsalideae), included by botanists in the subfamily Cactus (lat. Cactoideae) of the family of the same name Cactaceae (lat. Cactaceae). The genus is not numerous, according to various sources, the fingers of one hand, or a maximum of two hands, are enough to enumerate the species. In the climatic conditions of Russia, it prefers to be a houseplant.

What's in your name

Since the cacti belonging to the Rhipsalisaceae tribe did not fall into the review of different botanists all at once, but gradually, in their breakdown by genera, of which there are 4 today, there was a lot of confusion. Despite the fact that their appearance and life habits are very different from other species of the Cactus family, they are very similar to each other, and therefore one plant may have a name in different sources, for example, Ripsalis or Hatiora, plus a specific epithet.

The first species discovered, belonging today to the genus Hatiora, was described by the English botanist, Adrian Hardy Haworth (or, Haworth) (1767-1833), in 1819. Haworth named the species Rhipsalis salicornioides. The largest Swiss-French botanist A. P. Decandolle (Augustin Pyrame de Candolle, 1778 - 1841), having meticulously looked at the plant, transfers it to a new genus "Hariota", named after the English versatile scientist Thomas Harriot (Thomas Harriot, 1560-1621).

By 1923, confusion arose over the genus name "Hariota" ("Hariota"), and therefore two American botanists, Nathaniel Lord Britton (Nathaniel Lord Britton, 1859 - 1934) and Joseph Rose (Joseph Nelson Rose, 1862 - 1928) decided to create a new name by resorting to the anagram of the word "Hariota". By swapping 2 letters, "r" and "t", in the name "Hariota", they gave the name to the genus of cacti - "Hatiora" (Hatiora), which still exists today. However, old names sometimes appear in the literature, creating confusion and disagreement.

Description

Plants of the Hatiora genus in natural conditions are either epiphytic plants, that is, plants whose life is cut off from the ground and passes high on trees, or lithophytic plants, which happens less often, but takes place to be, that is, plants that have adapted to live on naked rocks devoid of nutrients. This forced them to abandon such a part of the plant as the leaves, which are involved in photosynthesis of food for the plant, and be content with stems and flowers alone.

Their succulent stems are not very succulent and grow either vertically upwards or hang down from the supports on which they have found shelter. The thorns habitual for cacti, as a rule, are not characteristic of plants of the Hatiora genus, but sometimes they do occur. If plants of other genera of the tribe Ripsalis flowers can be located not only at the end of the stem, then the genus Hatiora is characterized by a terminal arrangement of flowers, that is, only along the edge of the stem segments.

The structure of the flower is actinomorphic, the so-called correct, when two or more vertical planes can be drawn through the center of the flower, each of which will divide the flowers into mutually symmetrical parts. Petals of small flowers, no more than one centimeter in diameter, are always colored. Typical colors are: pink, yellow, orange. But there are always exceptions to any rule in nature, therefore there are subspecies with relatively large flowers, the petals of which can be pink or red, sometimes yellow.

The fruits of the Hatiora genus are fleshy, round or angular berries.

Species of the genus Hatiora grown as houseplants

* Hatiora cylindrica

* Hatiora epiphtlloides

* Hatiora gaertneri

* Hatiora herminiae

* Hatiora rosea

* Hatiora salicornioides