Diario de mjpapay
A very comprehensive study of the black nightshades,
descriptions,
illustrations,
photos,
distribution maps:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6554266/
Also, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/tax.12217
An excerpt from my self-published book, Splendor in Spines. [Few copies were printed, and I expect scarcely any remain.]
First, a short history of the taxonomic origins of the genus Notocactus.
References Cited
NOTOCACTUS: In the early days of cactus taxonomy, few cacti were yet discovered, and precious little was known about them. At the beginning, of course, there were just a few described genera in which to place any newly discovered cactus. Thus, many species were at first placed in the genus Echinocactus - established by Link & Otto in 1827. As more cacti were discovered and more was learned about them , here and there species were gathered into groups. Sometimes the taxonomists proceeded with caution, and created subgenera within Echinocactus for the different groups. Eventually these subgenera were given status as genera in their own right. This was the path for Notocactus, made a subgenus in 1898 by Karl Moritz Schumann, then raised to genus by Albert Vojtec Fric in 1928.
By recent taxonomic treatment the Notocacti are to be placed in the genus Parodia. However, you will find many nurseries still recognize Notocactus, which in fact will save you a good bit of trouble if you are a grower of cacti. For truth be told, the Notocacti are almost embarrassingly easy to grow, whereas the species of Parodia are difficult at best.
The reason the Notocacti are so easy to grow is that they are native to non-arid, temperate regions of southern South America, essentially Rio Grand du Sol, Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. The species hardier to cold (10F, -12C) occur in southern Uruguay, and in the Argentine Provinces of Cordoba and San Luis. Tony Mace reported that the Notocacti prefer a soil that is acidic or at most neutral (pH 5 to 7), and occur in places where "the average rainfall is quite high, between 20 and 40 inches per annum, and there is usually only a very short dry season." He continued, the Notocactis "are found growing . . . frequently on well-drained rocky outcrops". I can report that if given at least 4 hours of direct sunlight, a more or less south-facing exposure, and soil that does not hang wet, many Notocati are a lead pipe cinch in USDA Zone 7b or warmer.
Cactus Tears: Freidrich Sellow & Notocactus sellowi
References Cited
Many a cactologist has fallen under the spell of Notocactus sellowi. It was in fact Friedrich Sellow, A Prussian from Potsdam, who was this plant's first European discoverer. He collected it whilst exploring the natural history of Southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina from 1814 through 1831. Friedrich Sellow sent his natural history collections back to Prussia (now Germany), where his friends Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link and Christoph Friedrich Otto analyzed them. In 1827, Link & Otto published several new cactus species collected by Sellow, and named the most handsome of the species for him, calling it Echinocactus sellowi. An exemplary illustration of the species was provided in Tab. XXII of the publication, and cannot be confused for any other species of Notocactus.
Friedrich Sellow did not have long to enjoy the distinction of having a cactus bearing his name. Tragically, in October 1831, at age 42, Sellow drowned in Argentina's Rio Dulce. Perils are omnipresent at un-bridged river crossings. Today we are unaware of the countless lives saved by the feats of engineering exemplified worldwide in ancient and modern bridges that span waterways hither thither and yon. All those years ago, Argentina's Santiago del Estero had no bridge over the Rio Dulce for a traveler's safe passage. Misfortune, and a river named for its sweet water, took Sellow's life.
A testament to its attractiveness, Notocactus sellowi has many synonyms given by cactologists who wished to be the author who named it. Synonyms of Notocactus sellowi include: N. corynoides, N. courantii, N. curtinensis, N. erinaceus (where your will errantly find it filed at present), N. leprosorum, N. leucocarpus, N. macroacanthus, N. macrogonus, N. orthacanthus, N. pauciareolatus, N. rubricostatus, N. stegmannii, N. tephracanthus, and N. vorwerkianus. Everyone wanted to stamp a name on this cactus. It, however, belong's to Friedrich Sellow.
NOTE: In the heady days of early discoveries and description of cacti, cactus taxonomy was in a very transient condition. This is evident in the 1827 publication by Link & Otto. To understand what appears to be an error, one must first realize that before there was a genus that Link & Otto named Echinocactus, the species that comprise it were assigned to the genus Melocactus - the first cactus genus ever described [a separate story of which I have written, but not yet shared here]. Thus, when Link & Otto created the illustration for Sellow's cactus, they commissioned it under the name Melocactus sellowi. By the time their publication was ready for print, however, they had created a new genus, Echinocactus, and described Sellow's cactus as Echinocactus sellowi, and referred to the illustration that had the older name, by then a synonym, Melocactus sellowi. You can see it all for yourself here, thanks to Biodiversity Heritage Library:
[Link & Otto, 1827, Echinocactus, Verhandlungen des Vereins zur Beförderung des Gartenbaues in den Königlich Preussischen Staaten, 3: page 425 & Tab. XXII]
illustration: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/106486#page/491/mode/1up
exemplary iNat observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/91763657
THE FIRST CACTUS
[a slightly modified excerpt from my self-published book, Splendor in Spines - Few copies printed. I doubt many remain.]
It is unlikely that the typical Scottish clansman knows that the thistle, the National Flower of Scotland, lent its name to a bizarre plant discovered on a tropical island half a world away. And who would believe that it was Christopher Columbus, on his last voyage across the ocean blue, who brought this curiosity to Europe? Or do the citizens of Germany know that it was their native son who first described and illustrated this remarkable plant from Jamaica, and who coined the now famous word, Cactus? No, probably not. And, do the citizens of Jamaica celebrate their native plant that is the founding species for science of what are arguably the most famous plants in all the world - The Cactus Family? Lamentably, no. How could they? The story is only about to be told.
Exploration of distant and foreign places has always been a risky and dangerous business. Its history is rife with calamity and misfortune. Still, it is easier to be the discoverer of new things if you are the first explorer of foreign regions. And although Christopher Columbus mistakenly insisted that his voyages across the Atlantic west of Spain were to a place already well known, India (thusly the origin of the Isles called the West Indies), his mistake led to the discovery and naming of the first cactus.
It was like this. After sailing west from Spain in 1502, Columbus arrived in the Caribbean with a ship in utter disrepair as a result of termites and storm damage. So, he put ashore in Jamaica. He spent a year there to organize a return to Spain, during which time he was undoubtedly introduced to the native people of Jamaica, and the native flora and fauna. Then as now, exotica was met with fascination, and having failed to find abundant riches in gold and silver, or a new passage to India for that matter, what else was Christopher Columbus to do than fill the coffers for Queen Isabella, who had funded the expedition, with the exotica before him? And so he did. One of the most outlandish botanical curiosities that he brought had a body somewhat like a melon, and was adorned with fierce prickles like a thistle. Not surprisingly, Europeans soon called it a Melon Thistle.
In 1504, after spending a year in Jamaica, Christopher Columbus returned to Spain and brought with him the Melon Thistle. It was a sort of sensation, and was assiduously cultivated, and shared when possible. In 1588, Jacob Theodor Tabernaemontanus, a Prussian doctor and botanist, described and depicted the Jamaican Melon Thistle in his decoratively illustrated, Krauter Buch (Herb Book). With great care, Tabernaemontanus described the plants in his Krauter Buch in Latin, German, and English. For the Melon Thistle, he gave its German name - Melonendistel, its English name - Hedgehog Thistle, and crucially, in Latinized Greek - Echino melocactus. The Greek word for thistle is kaktos, which Tabernaemontanus had translated to Latin as cactus. It was an important moment in botanical history
165 years after Tabernaemontanus, Carl Linnaeus published his Species Plantarum, and renamed Echino melocactus (Hedgehog Melon Thistle) as Cactus melocactus (Melonthistle Thistle), the name of which was somewhat redundant. It became even more redundant when it was renamed Melocactus melocactus (Melonthistle Melonthistle). This awkwardness was sort of fixed in 1991 when the Jamaican Melon Thistle was renamed, brace yourself, Melocactus carol-linnaei, Linnaeus' Melonthistle. One wonders what Dr. Tabernaemontanus would have had to say about that? Or Christopher Columbus? Or the citizens of Jamaica? Why not name the first-ever described cactus for the land from which it came and where it sill resides - Melocactus jamaicensis. It is a song in itself and is wholly appropriate. Yeah, I know. That'll be the day.
According to Doctor Werner Rauh, in the foreword to his book, Kakteen an ihren Standorten, 1979, Melocactus was once called Mutzencactus. The German word, mutzen has a dual use. It can mean the type of woven cap that has a little ball at the top. When donned upon the head, the hat has the appearance of a Melocactus. Mutzen also refers to a small, sweet, melon-shaped pastry, from which the mutzen cap obtained its name.
References:
Wikipedia - Voyages of Christopher Columbus
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Photos of the First Cactus: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/440347-Melocactus-caroli-linnaei
First illustration: https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/32238#page/1096/mode/1up (page 1081)
Since the beginning of life in so simple a form so long ago, it has tended to diversify. Ancient forms still thrive amongst, around, above, and below their descendants. It is fascinating to trace the heritage of a modern form back in time. Anthropology is interested in the history of human evolution, and botany (amongst many other fascinating facets) is interested in the evolution of the plants. So, let us ask, What was the first cactus? We might imagine that if we trace the family line of a cactus into the distant past that we would eventually arrive at something not very cactus-like. And so it is.
Life's history was not filmed and recorded from the beginning by camera crews and scientists. And so far at least, no cacti have been found in the fossil record. We are therefor left to use what is available in our time to piece together an understanding of the origins of the cacti. We must find our answer amongst the living cacti.
To gaze upon a cactus for the first time is to behold a succulent plant with great spines and no leaves. But not all cacti exactly fit this description, particularly as regards the absence of leaves. In the lowland Neotropics of Southern Mexico, the Caribbean, thence south to Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay thrive cacti that do not appear to be cacti at all. They are woody shrubs and trees with leaves. Succulent leaves, mind you. And amongst the leaves along the stem, the sharp and painful spines of cacti. These remarkable plants are in fact cacti. They are the Pereskia, and it is the Pereskia that resemble the presumed ancestral cactus. The resemblance is not just skin deep, as research about the metabolism and water-use of the Pereskia shows them to be true cacti.
In fact, the Pereskia were amongst the first cacti ever discovered. Around 1690, Charles Plumier, Royal Botanist for King Louis XIV, was on assignment in the Caribbean. In 1703, Plumier named the first Pereskia, calling it Pereskea aculeata. Rather remarkably, that is still its name today. It is also called the Barbados Gooseberry. It has pretty flowers that mature into attractive nourishing fruits.
So, although the first cactus ever described was a Melocactus from Jamaica, we may rightly consider the Barbados Gooseberry as the other First Cactus.
References used:
Edward Anderson, 2001, The Cactus Family
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Photos of Barbados Gooseberry: https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/166500-Pereskia-aculeata/browse_photos
This is the story of the First Opuntia Cactus. It is a curious tale indeed.
With a common name of Indian Fig Cactus, and a scientific name that says the same thing in Latin, Opuntia ficus-indica, you would be justified to think that the First Opuntia Cactus was from India. But you would be wrong.
This incongruous fact is attributable to two men, the first being Christopher Columbus, who in 1492 sailed west, from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean in the hopes of establishing a new route to India. So, the islands that Christopher Columbus discovered on the west side of the Atlantic were called The West Indies. The island of Jamaica is amongst these.
In 1687, nearly two centuries after Columbus caused some islands of the Caribbean to be called The West Indies, the physician and botanist, Hans Sloane visited the West Indian Island of Jamaica. There he observed that in their gardens and yards the citizens grew a cactus for its regular crop of large tasty fruits. Hans Sloane described this cactus in 1707, and gave it the scientific name, wait for it, Opuntia maximima in reference to the large size of the flat ovoid stem sections of the cactus. Opuntia is in reference that the cactus grows sort of like a string of beads, but in a rigid, bushy way, with very large beads/stem sections.
In 1753, Carolus Linnaeus renamed the cactus that Hans Sloane had found, and called it instead, Opuntia ficus-india. Now you know the name of the 2nd person responsible for the seemingly incongruous name, Indian Fig Cactus for a cactus that in fact grows in the Americas on the island of Jamaica, not in India.
It is at this point in a story that I would normally like to suggest that the cactus should be named for the island of Jamaica, where it was found by Hans Sloane. However, M. Patrick Griffith could declare my error for such an assertion, for he proved that Opuntia ficus-indica is neither native to India nor Jamaica. It is instead native to somewhere in central Mexico where it has been cultivated by people for untold centuries. From there it has radiated out as it has been shared amongst families, grown in garden and orchard, and transported for same said reasons, and by and by found a home in Jamaica. And, by and by, it was described as The First Opuntia Cactus.
So, it is true that Jamaica is home to The First Opuntia Cactus, a member of the Opuntiads, the most species-rich group of the Cactus Family. Serendipity is a curious thing. Jamaica is also home to The First Cactus, the history of which is also an interesting tale. The First Cactus was "discovered" by Christopher Columbus, and is now named, almost unbelievably, Melocactus caroli-linnaei.
References
