Autor:P.J.Braun
• ETYMOLOGY
A genus honouring Eddie Esteves Pereira (1939-), Brazilian botanist and specialist of the Cactaceae of this country, and who discovered this taxon (see portrait above, cLinda Borges).
• DESCRIPTION
Monospecific genus of plants with cylindrical stems of medium size (up to 50cm in height and 3cm diameter max.), cereiform, with tap roots, branching from the base; ribs 7-10, obtuse, slightly crenulate. Areoles tomentose, bearing many straight spines (about forty), finely aciculate, pale yellow.
Flowers nocturnal, self-sterile, appearing towards the top of stems, 13.5-17cm long, erect, funnel-shaped, white, with a long floral tube having some spines on fluffy areoles. Fruits egg-shaped to elongated, yellow, fleshy with a juicy pulp, floral remains persistent. Seeds rough, tuberculate, black.
• HABITAT
The monotypic genus Estevesia grows at approximately 790 m in altitude, in the Brazilian campo cerrado, a type of shrubby savannah, on granitic outcrops, among grasses and bushes, together with Bromeliads (Bromelia, Dyckla, Aechmea), as well as Epiphyllum phyllanthus.
• DISTRIBUTION
Brazil (Goias).
Currently only one recognised species:
– Estevesia alex-bragai P.J.Braun & Esteves 2009
References: "TAXONOMY of the CACTACEAE" - ISBN 978-84-617-3723-9 (Vol. 1)