
The
flowers forms
apically at the tip of a
stems.
 |
Description: This is a
geophyte cactus with huge tuberous roots under the soil with thin
fragile blue-light to brownish-purple stems that breaks off easily.
Flowers are a pale to deep yellow and the stigma can be from almost
white, pink to deep red. The flowers are produced from the apex of new
growth.
Cultivation: Pterocacti are easy to grow, providing they are kept
cold, but dry during autumn and winter. It is essential to give
full sun otherwise they will become atypical. If grown in full sun, the
new growth will flower profusely in spring and summer.
Most of the slender stems become detached during winter but someone
advise to help plant pruning all the top growth in autumn to encourage
it to produce stems with terminal flowers in the spring.
Reproduction: Seeds/Cuttings Pterocactus tuberosus
is some time used as an hardy grafting stock for south-American cacti like tephrocactus
malyanus.
The genus pterocactus belong to the subfamily Opuntioideae
and has been given its own tribe, the Pterocacteae.

 |