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Hylocereus ocamponis |
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Synonymy
Cereus ocamponis Salm-Dyck (1850) Cact. Hort. Dyck. 1849. 220
Cereus purpusii Weingart (1909) Monatsschr. Kakteenk. 19:150
Hylocereus ocamponis (Salm-Dyck) Britton & Rose (1909) Contr. U. S. Nat. Herb. 12:429
Hylocereus purpusii (Weingart) Britton & Rose (1920) The Cactac. 2:184
Ethymology
This plant commemorates the Mexican politician and scientist Melchor Ocampor who proposed a classification system for Cactaceae in 1866.
History
Descripted from cultivated plants but was later found in W Mexico. As many other species, this is called Piathaya and the fruits are eaten localy.
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Photograph by E. Halbinger |
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Photograph by E. Greenwood |
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Red Pitahaya Wine
- 6 lbs ripe red pitaya fruit
- 2 lb sugar
- 6 pts water
- 1 crushed Campden tablet
- 1 tsp pectic enzyme
- 1 tsp yeast nutrient
- 1 pkt wine yeast
Put water on to boil. Meanwhile, carefully trim the greenery from the fruit, wash the fruit well, and chop it coarsely. Put chopped fruit, sugar and yeast nutrient into primary. When water boils, pour
into primary and stir until sugar dissolves. Cover with a sanitized cloth and set aside to cool. When at room temperature, add crushed Campden tablet and stir. Recover primary and set aside for 12 hours. Add
pectic enzyme, stir, recover primary, and set aside another 12 hours. Add activated yeast. Stir daily for 7 days. Strain through nylon straining bag and squeeze juice out of red pitaya pulp. Transfer liquid
to secondary, top up if required and fit airlock. Rack, top up and refit airlock every 30 days until wine clears and no new sediments form during a 30-day period. Stabilize, sweeten to taste, wait 10 days,
and rack into bottles. Like most wines, it should improve with age. |
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Description
Stems
scandent, clambering or sprawling, branching, producing few aerial roots, stiff, to 1-5 m long or more, sections 15-30 cm long, 5-8 cm thick; ribs 3-4; areoles small, white, near base of each undulation, internodes 20-40 mm, margins slightly to rather deeply undulate with corneous border; spines 3-8, 5-12 (-20) mm long, acicular, stiff, yellow to dirsty white, brown in age; epidermis at first bright green, later dull bluish green.
Flowers
25-30 cm long, 25-30 cm in diameter; pericarpel 20 mm, with acisular spines, 3-8 per areole; pericarpel spherical to ovate; receptacle covered with imbricate, ovate, acute, purple-margined bracteoles; outer tepals spreading or reflexed, linear-lanceolate, long-acuminate, greenish to and purplish, the innermost sometimes golden; inner tepals oblong, acuminate, white to cream, sometimes with yellow tips; stamens yellow, shorter than inner tepals; style as long a inner tepals, very thick, stigma lobes 22, linear, entire, green or sulphur yellow.
Fruit ovoid, 10cm long and 7 cm thick, indehicent; purplish red., seeds black. Edible. |
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Origin and habitat
Mexico (Sinaloa, Jalisco, Colima and Michoacán), also reported from Guatemala (Jalapa). Epiphytic or terrestrial in tropical semievergreen forests,
moist thickets. To 1.350-2.000 m alt. Systematics
Very variable
and poorly defined species. Very close to and perhaps conspecific with H. guatemalensis, the latter species has shorter, conic spines.Hylocereus bronxensis
(Britton & Rose (1920) The Cactac. 2:185) is similar but outer tepals broad, ovate, obtuse or rounded, inner tepals oblong, rounded at apex, more or less apiculate. H. bronxensis
is just known in cultivation. Cultivation
An easily cultivated, fast growing plant. Needs a compost containing
plenty of humus and sufficient moisture in summer. Requires much warmth in summer to flower. Should be kept at ca. 10ºC (50ºF) in winter, but some clones can tolerate as low as -5ºC (23ºF)
for shorter periods. Best grown in full sun. One of the most easily flowered Hylocereus which can produce flowers on relatively young plants. |
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