The young growth is glossy green, the areoles subtended by broad round bracts. Seedling plants are very different from the adult plant; they are strongly 4-angled, with each angle bearing closely-set areoles, filled with slender bristles and showing no resemblance to the typical form; gradually as the plants grow older their mature joints take on the normal form. This plant is a prolific bloomer and in the garden of the Museo Paulista it remains in flower for three weeks. 

subspecies  paradoxa 

Notes from Bradleya 13

DISTRIBUTION. Brazil SW Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catarina): epiphyte in seasonal Atlantic forest, sea level to c. 800 m altitude.

Desc from Hunt 2006.
Body pendent, up to 5m; primary branching with bristly spines; secondary branching mostly verticillate, determinate, 3 angled and winged, stiff, the angles offset between successive areoles, producing the effect of a string of short segments; areoles 4-5cm apart, immersed; flowers rotate, 1 per areole, 11x12-20mm, whitish; fruit globose

R. paradoxa subs. septentrionalis