Cylindropuntia leptocaulis (DC.) F.M.Knuth

국표에 없다.

Origin and Habitat: Cylindropuntia leptocaulis is widely distributed, occurring in the Mexican states of Aguascalientes, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Durango, México State, Guanajuato, Hidalgo, Jalisco, Nuevo León, Puebla, Querétaro, San Luis Potosí, Sonora, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, and Zacatecas. It is widely distributed in the Chihuahuan Desert Region . In the United States it occurs in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. The population in the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán region in Puebla is disjunct from the main population. Records from Baja California Sur require confirmation. This is the most wide-ranging cholla species.
Altitude range: 40-1500 metres above sea level.
Habitat and Ecology: The species inhabits deserts, grasslands, xerophyllous scrub, oak-juniper woodlands, bajadas and slopes, on sandy, loamy to gravelly substrates. It can survive in human modified habitats. In Tiburon island it grows near the shore, where it generally occurs with Peniocereus striatus. The reproductive potential of this species is enormous, being able to reproduce sexually and also asexually by detachable stem fragments. There are no major threats for this species. Stem fragments are easily dispersed by cattle. Its range and population are likely increasing with cattle-ranching.

Common Names include:
ENGLISH: Slender stem cactus, Pencil cholla, Pencil cactus, Christmas cactus, Christmas Cactus, Tesajo Cactus, Turkey Cactus, Coyote cactus, Desert Christmas Cholla, Desert Christmas Cactus
SPANISH (Español): Tasajillo, Tasajo, Catalinaria, Alfilerillo, Tasajilla, Tesajillo, Aguijilla, Garambullo, Tesajo

Description: Cylindropuntia leptocaulis (syn. Opuntia leptocaulis) (desert Christmas cactus, pencil cactus) is a slender spiny or nearly spineless cactus, usually bushy, variously branched, often compact, 0.2 to 2 metres high, but sometimes treelike with a short, definite trunk. As its common names indicate, it has pencil-sized and -shaped stems, which are green and hold on to showy, bright red or red-orange fruits well into winter. Many plants have proliferating chains of 2 or 3 fruits. In most cases, the stems are slightly thinner than a pencil and are decorated with a dark purplish band running lengthwise. The pale yellowish or cream flowers are less than 2 cm in diameter and open in late afternoon. The silver spines are about 2.5 cm long and grow at almost a right angle to the stem, but pointing slightly downward. Young plants produce a moderately thickened tuberous root.
Stem: Main stem (trunk) 5 to 8 cm in diameter, dull green with darker blotches below the areoles, with very slender, cylindric, ascending, hardly tuberculate branches, grey-green to purplish, 20-80 cm long, especially the fruiting ones, thickly set with short, usually spineless joints spreading nearly at right angles to the main branches, easily detached. Stem segments usually alternate, grey-green or purplish, 20-80 mm long, 3-5(-6.5) mm in diameter. Tubercles linear, drying as elongate, riblike wrinkles, 11-20(-30) mm long.
Areoles: With very short white to yellow wool, becoming grey with age, broadly elliptical. Glochids yellow to reddish brown, 1-5 mm long.
Leaves: Green, awl-shaped, 12 mm long or less, acute.
Spines: Usually solitary concentrated on apical areoles of the main branches, evenly distributed on segments, at areoles of old branches 2 or 3 together, very slender, round in cross section, angular-flattened basally, erect, flexible, straight or curved, 2 to 5 cm long or less, reddish brown with with white or grey coats. Sheaths of spines closely fitting or loose and papery, gray to purple-gray with yellow to red-brown tips or yellow throughout.
Flowers: 1-5 to 2 cm. long including the ovary. Inner perianth segments, greenish or yellowish, sometimes with reddish tips, narrowly obovate, 5-8 mm, acute, apiculate. Outer perianth segments broadly ovate, acute, or cuspidate. Ovary obconic, bearing numerous small woolly brown areoles subtended by small leaves, its glochids brown. Filaments greenish yellow; anthers yellow. Style yellow; stigma lobes greenish yellow.
*Fruits: Numerous, small, globular to obovate or even clavate, often proliferous, green, often with purple tint, becoming red or rarely yellow at maturity, 9-18(-27) mm long, 6-7(-12) mm in diameter turgid, slightly fleshy, smooth and spineless. Umbilicus 2-4 mm deep. Areoles 16-20.
Blooming season: Spring-early summer, sometimes autumn (Mar-Aug, Oct).
Seeds: Compressed, suborbicular to squarish and crenate in outline, warped, 3 to 4 mm broad, with narrow, often acute, margins.
Chromosome number: 2n = 22, 33, 44. It seems that O. leptocaulis is tetraploid in the Chihuahuan Desert Region and diploid, or tetraploid in the Sonoran Desert region. The general absence of fertile, intermediates (triploid 2n = 33), there would be ample justification for interpreting them as distinct species. Cylindropuntia leptocaulis forms hybrids with Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa var. major (see Cylindropuntia x tetracantha), Cylindropuntia arbuscula, Cylindropuntia fulgida, Cylindropuntia kleiniae, Cylindropuntia spinosior, Cylindropuntia versicolor, and Cylindropuntia whipplei. The chromosome number reported for hybrids is 2n = 22.

Cylindropuntia leptocaulis (llifle.com)

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