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The Loefgren
drawing is from O GENERO RHIPSALIS por Alberto Lofgren,
Jardim Botanico do Rio De Janeiro, 1915.
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Treated as a synonym of Rhipsalis loefgrenii Britton and
Rose. Then reduced to synonymy under L. lumbricoides f.
lumbricoides by Barthlott and Taylor Bradleya 13.
The description
given below is a combination of B & R’s ‘loefgrenii’
and Loefgren’s ‘novaesii’ because they are referring
to the same plant!
- Stems long and slender,
rooting freely all along stem, pale green to purple, terete, 3 mm.
in
diameter;
- Areoles small, subtended
by a large scarious bract with appressed hairs in axils when
young;
- Flowers very numerous,
lateral, 12 to 15 mm. long, campanulate;
- Petals 8 - 10, lanceolate,
acute, tip turned out. Higher sepals are green, lower sepals larger
than the higher ones, outside is glossy white with green stripe,
somewhat pinkish at tip, pale red at base
- Filaments few, purplish
at base;
- Ovary green
- Fruit purplish, 5 to
8 mm. in diameter
- Seeds.small, oblong,
brownish, glabrous
Type locality: Near Campinas,
Brazil.
Distribution. Brazil
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Dr. Rose saw the Loefgren type in the Botanical Garden at Rio de Janeiro
and obtained living and herbarium specimens of the plant. Dr. Shafer
also obtained living specimens from Loefgren in 1917.
Unfortunately, Loefgren's
name was given to another plant by Gurke and for this reason we have
renamed it in honor of Dr. Alberto Loefgren (1854-1918), who long
studied this genus and published an excellent monograph of it in 1915.
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