** RHIPSALIS **
** PLANTS THAT ARE **
** PLEASANT TO GROW **
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CHAPTER 1
The diversity of Rhipsalis (photos).
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These pages will talk about Rhipsalis, which, among the epiphytic cacti, are easy to cultivate even in apartments if you don't have a cold greenhouse.
Rhipsalis burchellii
This is the very type of Rhipsalis sold in garden centres.
"Rhips" comes from a Greek word meaning "braided rush", because the most famous Rhipsalis have thin, flexible cylindrical stems that recall the shape of a rush. But, we should not believe that all Rhipsalis have this vegetative form. There is, in fact, a very wide variety of stem shapes. Here are some pictures to illustrate my point of view.
Lepismium (formerly Rhipsalis) houlletianum f. regnelli
Pfeiffera (formerly Rhipsalis) monacantha and its ripe fruits
Rhipsalis paradoxa
Rhipsalis crispata
Rhipsalis elliptica
Rhipsalis pachyptera
Rhipsalis baccifera and its ripe fruits,
a plant originating from Madagascar
Rhipsalis mesembryanthemoides
Rhipsalis cereuscula
I'm done with this series of photos. You will find a wider choice of species and photos in my Rhipsalis gallery from 2002 to 2012, updated in 2013.
However, this gallery has the disadvantage of having been written with the names in use at the time. Therefore it uses has an obsolete taxonomy, which I have not modified.
You will find at the end of the article the link to this gallery.
Most Rhipsalis have relatively small day flowers (only a few millimetres in diameter) that are white in the vast majority of cases.
But the diversity of stem shapes makes these plants very decorative, even when not in bloom. This is a particularity of this genus.
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