ISI 2011-2. Cleistocactus sepium = Cleistocactus candelilla Cárdenas

This Ecuadorian cactus has grown in the Huntington’s Desert Garden since the late 1930s. It was received as var. morleyanus and, while this geographical variant is retained by J. E. Madsen in his treatment of the Cactaceae for the Flora of Ecuador, our plant shows features of both var. morleyanus and var. sepium. This ambiguity is the reason for lumping the varieties in both Anderson’s The Cactus Family and Hunt’s New Cactus Lexicon. In any case it has proven to be a useful landscape cactus. It creates a thicket of erect to sprawling slender stems with red-violet, tubular flowers produced near the stem-tips over a long season in late spring and summer to the benefit of hummingbirds that feed on the nectar. Rooted cuts of HBG 6210, a plant received from Mrs. Wright of Santa Barbara, April 6, 1936. $10.