Angiosperms (Flowering Plants) • Earth.com

Krainz’ crown cactus

(Rebutia minuscula)

galery
en

Description

Rebutia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cactaceae, native to Bolivia and Argentina. They are generally small, colorful cacti, globular in form, which freely produce flowers that are relatively large in relation to the body. They have no distinctive ribs, but do have regularly arranged small tubercles. They are considered fairly easy to grow and they may produce large quantities of seeds that germinate freely around the parent plant. The limits of the genus are currently uncertain – in particular whether or not it includes species formerly or currently placed in the genera Aylostera, Cintia, Sulcorebutia and Weingartia. The number of species included varies widely from source to source. A very large number of plants that have been treated in cultivation as species of Rebutia are now generally regarded as varieties, forms or synonyms of a much smaller number of species. The genus was designated in 1895 by Karl Moritz Schumann and named after Pierre Rebut (1828–1902), a French cactus nurseryman. The type species is R. minuscula, which has been in cultivation since 1887. There has been considerable debate about the extent of the genus. In the middle of the twentieth century there was a tendency to separate groups of plants within Rebutia as new genera, e.g. Mediolobivia, whereas towards the end of the century the reverse tendency predominated, with genera previously regarded as separate, such as Weingartia, being subsumed within Rebutia. At the beginning of the twenty-first century there was a broad consensus, as reflected in Kew's list of Vascular Plant Families and Genera, that the following genera should be regarded as synonyms of Rebutia: Aylostera Speg. Bridgesia Backeb. Cylindrorebutia Fric & Kreuz. Digitorebutia Fric & Kreuz. Echinorebutia Fric Eurebutia Fric Gymnantha Y.Itô Mediolobivia Backeb. Mediorebutia Fric Neogymnantha Y.Itô Reicheocactus Backeb. Setirebutia Fric & Kreuz. Spegazzinia Backeb. Sulcorebutia Backeb. Weingartia Werderm. (The generic names Bridgesia, Spegazzinia, Echinorebutia, Eurebutia, Mediorebutia, Neogymnantha and Setirebutia are invalid, the first two because they are homonyms of Bridgesia Bert. ex Cambess. and Spegazzinia Saccardo respectively, the remainder for lack of any valid publication. Some of these are nevertheless valid names for subdivisions of the genus. The history of the taxonomic treatment of the genera Rebutia, Aylostera, Weingartia, Sulcorebutia and Cintia is summarized below.

Taxonomic tree:

Domain:
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum:
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order:Caryophyllales
Family:Cactaceae
Genus:Rebutia
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