Rhipsalis loefgrenii Britton and Rose
Reduced to synonymy under L. lumbricoides f. lumbricoides by Barthlott and Taylor Bradleya13

Rhipsalis novaesii Loefgren, Arch. Jard. Bot. Rio de Janeiro 1. 69. 1915. Not Gurke, 1909.
The description given below is a combination of B & R’s ‘loefgrenii’ and Loefgren’s ‘novaesii’ because they are referring to the same plant!

  • Stems long and slender, rooting freely all along stem, pale green to purple, terete, 3 mm. in
    dia­meter;
  • Areoles small, subtended by a large scarious bract with appressed hairs in axils when
    young;
  • Flowers very numerous, lateral, 12 to 15 mm. long, campanulate;
  • Petals 8 - 10, lanceolate, acute, tip turned out. Higher sepals are green, lower sepals larger
    than the higher ones, outside is glossy white with green stripe, somewhat pinkish at tip, pale
    red at base
  • Filaments few, purplish at base;
  • Ovary green
  • Fruit purplish, 5 to 8 mm. in diameter
  • Seeds.small, oblong, brownish, glabrous
  • Type locality: Near Campinas, Brazil.

Distribution. Brazil

Dr. Rose saw the Loefgren type in the Botanical Garden at Rio de Janeiro and obtained living and herbarium specimens of the plant. Dr. Shafer also obtained living specimens from Loefgren in 1917.

Unfortunately, Loefgren's name was given to another plant by Gurke and for this reason we have renamed it in honor of Dr. Alberto Loefgren (1854-1918), who long studied this genus and published an excellent monograph of it in 1915.

NYBG herbarium had a pressed specimen on file but a search by staff failed to find it.

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