• Plant - branches slender, almost filiform, hanging, pale green when young, freely rooting; 
• Branches -  in terminal whorls, often as many as 6;
• Flowers -  large, 1.5 cm. long, white;
• Perianth-segments -  widely spreading;
• Stamens - orange-colored, at least at base;
• Fruit -  at first dark red but in age golden yellow.

Notes from Bradleya 13

DISTRIBUTION. Brazil (W Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Parana, Santa Catarina): epiphytic in Atlantic forest, to c. 1200 m altitude. 

Only plants with golden-yellow fruits have been seen in nature (NB. these are dull brownish-reddish before ripening), but a form with fruits that ripen to a tomato-red is known in cultivation. The fruit of Lindberg's type was unknown and material of the clone he received from J.D. Hooker at Kew does not appear to be extant or preserved there.

Desc from Hunt 2006.
Body a creeping to pendent epiphyte, often attaching itself to the tree trunk and limbs by means of aerial roots, dark or pale yellow green with red-purple markings; branch segments naked prior to flower bearing when the woolly sunken areoles are revealed, all segments of indeterminate growth, lacking terminal composite areoles, branching subacrotonically, up to 100 cm x 3-5mm; flowers 1.2 –1.5 x 1.7-2cm, whitish to cream; stigma 4-5, up to 3mm; fruit globose or usually discoid, 5x8 mm, red at first, usually orange when ripe (sometimes red?)

Often confused with R. floccosa ssp. pulvinigera but with branch segments of indeterminate growth, lacking composite terminal areole.

R. puniceodiscus x neves-armondii Desc from Taylor 1999.
"It is not know whether R. puniceodiscus and R. neves-armondii ever grow together in habitat in Brazil, but even if they do, there are no known records of any natural hybrids, either bewteen them or, indeed, in the genus Rhipsalis as a whole, and until now none has been reported in cultivation. (Barthlott & Taylor, 995: 68). However, in the living collections at Kew there is plant that appears to be perfectly intermediate between these two sepceis, especially in the critical vegetative characters, its stem-segments being neither wholly determinate, nor mainly indeterminate in growth behavior. It combines the tendency to produce abundant aerial roots (cf. R. puniceodiscus) with a pinkish magenta fruit (cf. R. neves-armondii) and seems a good candidate for a hybrid between the two species that has arisen in culivation. It is illustrated here, together with its presumed parents, in Christabel King's attractive watercolour."

Photos copyright Ken Friedman 12/12/2014 of a plant in the U.S.

R. puniceodiscus in Britton & Rose

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