Myrtillocactus geometrizans

Myrtillocactus geometrizans (Mart. ex Pfeiff.) Console (1897)

🌵 Author(s)	Michelangelo Console
🌵 Basionym	Cereus geometrizans (1837)
🌵 Basionym author(s)	Louis Pfeiffer
🌵 Basionym published in	Enum. Diagn. Cact. 90. (1837)
🌵 Type of	Myrtillocactus

Etymology

Latin gĕōmētrīa ‘geometry’, Greek geо̄metria ‘geometry, land-survey’ + Latin –izāns, present participle of –izō, a suffix used to form verbs from nouns and adjectives, hence ’employing geometry’ (Albertson, Mathematical Theologies: 362. 2014) or ‘measuring land’ (Genaust, Etymologisches Wörterbuch der botanischen Pflanzennamen. 3. Auflage. 1996). Not explained by Pfeiffer. Probably for the arcuate marks on the plant body (Pfeiffer: “quasi arcubus acutis notatus”). Eggli & Newton (Etymological Dictionary of Succulent Plant Names. 2004): “geometrical; for the arcuate pattern between the annual growths of the stems”. Haugg (Karteikarte 1992/16, Kakteen And. Sukk. 43(6). 1992): “geometrizans = uniform, regular, for the regular ripening lines of the new shoot”. Förster (Handb. Cacteenk. [Förster]: 394-395. 1846): “According to very experienced linguists the strange word “geometrizans” can only be translated as “geometric”; probably because the plant is marked, as it were, with old Gothic pointed arches.” Or perhaps because the species is very conspicuous in the landscape (“measuring land”)?

Rümpler (Handb. Cacteenk. (ed. 2 – Rümpler): 720. 1886) translated Cereus geometrizans as Architekten-Kerzencactus ‘architects’ candle-cactus’.

Compare Tephrocactus geometricus.