Cereus polychaetus

Cereus polychaetus Rchb. ex Walp. (1843)

🌵 Author(s)	Wilhelm Gerhard Walpers
🌵 Published in	Repert. Bot. Syst. (Walpers) 2(2): 340 (1843)

Etymology

Greek polychaitos ‘many-haired’. For the “very dense, convex, tomentose areoles” (“areolis densissimis convexis tomentosis”). Published simultaneously with Cereus xanthochaetus (Greek xanthos ‘yellow’), which was described as having “yellow-tomentose areoles” (“areolis […] luteo-tomentosis”).

Walpers credited both names to Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig Reichenbach in Terscheck’s Supplement zum Cacteen-Verzeichnis 3, but that publication has apparently been lost.

The epithet is sometimes miscorrected to polyachaetus.