| 🌵 Author(s) | Hippolyte Boissel de Monville | 🌵 Published in | Hort. Universel 1: 220 (1839) |
Greek panoplos ‘in full armour’ + Latin -ātus, adjectival suffix indicating possession or likeness. For the dense spination. Monville: “The numerous spines of this plant form such a complete and impenetrable armor that not a single point is accessible to the finger, hence the name we have given it.” Also spelled panoplaeatus and panopleatus. Schumann (Gesamtbeschr. Kakt.: 63. 1897) changed the epithet to panhoplites (Greek panoplitēs [also transliterated panhoplitēs] ‘man in full armour’) when he reclassified the taxon as a variety (Cereus chiloensis var. panhoplites), writing “The name panoplaeata, or the misleading planopleata, is badly formed; panhoplites means fully armed”. Eggli & Walter (in Taxon 63(3): 684. 2014): “Schumann’s opinion is confirmed by W. Greuter (pers. comm. to J. McNeill, May 2014), as ‘oploeatus’ is a mal-formed Greek-Latin mixed adjective (meaning ‘armed’), while ‘hoplites’ is a correctly formed Greek noun (meaning ‘soldier’).”
Maarten H.J. van der Meer (2023 Aug 01). Cereus panoploeatus. Dictionary of Cactus Names. Retrieved from https://www.cactusnames.org/cereus-panoploeatus