Autor: E.Esteves Pereira
• ETYMOLOGY
Genus honouring Pierre Josef Braun (1959-), German botanist and specialist of the Brazilian cacti.
• DESCRIPTION
A genus of usually solitary plants, subglobose becoming elongated (columnar and weakly branched in P. brauniorum), erect or bent, not constricted. Stems with 10-17 ribs (4-5 in P. brauniorum). Epidermis finely granular in P. brauniorum. Cephalium absent (flower-bearing areoles with dense wool in P. brauniorum). Spines aciculate, fragile.
Flowers diurnal, self-sterile, tubular, grouped at the apex, pink magenta, pollinated by hummingbirds (Eupetonema macroura). Fruits globose to egg-shaped, waxy, pink (pale pink to wine red in P. brauniorum), with translucent liquid pulp (red pink in P. brauniorum). Seeds slightly striate and foveolate (smooth in P. brauniorum), black, matt, retaining the remnants of the mucilage.
• HABITAT
The genus Pierrebraunia grows at approximately 1000 m in altitude, in bushes, on arid rocky soils, on cliffs or steep slopes, in the cracks of rocks, usually in full sun, among grasses, orchids, bromeliads, as well as other cacti.
• DISTRIBUTION
Brazil (Bahia, Minas Gerais).
Currently 2 possible species:
– Pierrebraunia bahiensis (Braun & Esteves) Esteves 1997
– Pierrebraunia brauniorum Esteves 1999 insertae sedis
References: "TAXONOMY of the CACTACEAE" - ISBN 978-84-617-3692-8 (Vol. 2)