Autor: Ritter
• ETYMOLOGY
” Woolly candle “, in reference to the wooly pseudocephalium that the stems of the genus develops when adult.
• DESCRIPTION
A genus of shrubby or treelike plants, with erect columnar stems reaching up to 3m high, with many narrow and tuberculate ribs. Areoles close-set, spines aciculate.
Flowers nocturnal, self-sterile, subapical, shortly tubular, appearing in a pseudocephalium, white inside, dark outside, covered with wool and bristles, pollinated by bats. Fruits globose, barrel-shaped, with a basal dehiscence, at first fleshy then with dried pulp. Seeds rather small, slightly tuberculate, shiny, black.
• HABITAT
The genus Lasiocereus grows on rocky slopes, among grasses and shrubs, in the shade of the surrounding vegetation (L. fulvus), from 500 m up to 2600 m in altitude in full sun (L rupicola).
• DISTRIBUTION
Peru (Amazonas, Cajamarca).
Currently 2 recognised species:
– Lasiocereus fulvus* F. Ritter 1966
– Lasiocereus rupicola* F.Ritter 1966
References: "TAXONOMY of the CACTACEAE" - ISBN 978-84-617-3723-9 (Vol. 1)