Consolea rubescens (Salm-Dyck ex DC.) Lem.
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Authority
Britton, Nathaniel L. Flora Borinqueña.
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Family
Cactaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Restricted in distribution to very dry climates, this tall/ cactus is frequent at low elevations in the southwestern parts of Porto Rico, locally abundant on hillsides, and in the thickets or low woodlands, has been seen at Cape San Juan, and also on the small islands Mona, Cayo lcacos, Vieques and Culebra; its further range is through the Virgin Islands, and in the Lesser Antilles from St. Martin to Guadeloupe. Like some other cacti it is either formidably spiny, or, much less commonly, quite unarmed. The spineless race has occasionally been planted in gardens as an object of particular interest; one of the largest plants of this kind grew for many years in a garden at Arroyo, but succumbed;cuttings from it were planted in the yard of the Coamo Springs Hotel, and had made considerable growth by 1931; one of these was taken to the Forestry Station at Rio Piedras, where it grew rapidly under the influence of the much higher rainfall there, and attained luxuriant development. Consolea (named in honor of Michel-Archangelo Console of Palermo) is a genus founded by the French botanist Lemaire in 1862, distinguished from Opuntia in the plants being tree-like, with erect, unjointed trunks, their small flowers which fall away from the ovary soon after expanding, their short branches semaphore-like, spreading at nearly right-angles to the trunk at the top, and their fruits often borne in chain-like clusters, successive ones growing from areoles on the older ones, a feature commonly seen on the spineless race of the species here illustrated. As in Opuntias, the ovary is beneath the calyx and corolla, but the sepals are more readily distinguished from the petals. The genus is composed of about 7 closely related species, 6 of them West Indian, 1 in southern Florida; the Jamaican Consolea spinosissima is the type species. Consolea rubescens (reddish) reaches a height of about 9 meters at its greatest development; trees of such size were observed by us near Tallaboa; the lower part of the trunk is round, the upper part flattened, bearing a few, widely spreading branches. The joints are flat and thin, green or reddish-green, oblong or broadest above the middle, 10 to 25 centimeters long; their areoles usually bear from 1 to 6, needle-like, nearly white spines, and short, brownish glochides. The flowers are yellow, orange, or red from 2 to 3 centimeters broad, with obovate petals about twice as long as the stamens; the long-tubercled, often flattened ovary is 4 or 5 centimeters long. The fleshy fruit is 5 to 6 centimeters in diameter, spiny or unarmed.
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Discussion
Tuna de petate Tree Cactus Cactus Family Opuntia rubescens Salm-Dyok; De Candolle, Prodromus 3: 474. 1828. Consolea rubescens Lemaira, Revue Horticole 1862:174. 1862.