Gymnocereus

Gymnocereus Backeb., nom. illeg. (1956)

🌵 Author(s)	Curt Backeberg
🌵 Type	Gymnocereus microspermus

Etymology

Greek gymnos ‘naked’ + Cereus, the name of a genus of columnar cacti and a designation for columnar cacti in general. For the “not very long, naked-tubed flowers, which in form are very different from other Gymnocerei, like bare Haageocereus flowers (as we find them, almost bare, in Haageocereus acranthus)” (Blätt. Kakteenf. 1938(1): [3] [Gymnanthocereus]). Backeberg (erroneously) believed the type species of Gymnanthocereus, Gymnanthocereus chlorocarpus, to be a Seticereus, which rendered Gymnanthocereus a synonym of that genus. He erected the new genus Gymnocereus for the remaining former Gymnanthocereus species.