Phyllocactus

Phylllocactus Link, nom. illeg. (1831)

🌵 Author(s)	Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link
🌵 Type	not cited

Etymology

Greek phyllon ‘leaf’ + Cactus. For the leaf-like stems. Link, who published the name, provided the German translation Blättercactus ‘leaf cactus’. A.J. van Laren (Cactussen, 1931) coined the Dutch name bladstengelcactus ‘leaf-stem cactus’ as a replacement for the older bladcactus ‘leaf cactus’ to avoid the suggestion that these cacti actually have leaves.

This name, which was in very common use, especially in Europe, is an illegitimate later synonym of Epiphyllum (both are based on the same species, Epiphyllum phyllanthus). R.W. Poindexter (in Kelsey & Dayton, Standardized Plant Names, 1942) stated that “[a]ccording to American usage, the true species of Epiphyllum are called Epiphyllums. In European usage, Epiphyllums are usually called Phyllocacti, particularly the horticultural hybrids. There is a tendency in America to call the species Epiphyllums and the hybrids Phyllocacti, on the ground that the hybrids are not true Epiphyllums in that they are hybridized with plants of other genera, usually either Selenicereus or Heliocereus.” Today, the name Phyllocactus has all but fallen out of use. Confusingly, the hybrids (known as “epicacti” in the more serious literature) are often informally called Epiphyllum today, even though all Epiphyllum species involved in them have been transferred to Disocactus.

Macrophoma phyllocacti Speg. (in Anales Mus. Nac. Hist. Nat. Buenos Aires ser. 3, 13: 349. 1911) is a fungus Spegazzini found growing on “weak or dry cladode of a certain Phyllocactus in my garden in La Plata.”