Soon-to-be-published findings from a molecular phylogenomic and biogeographic study of the Mammilloid Clade indicate that there is a strongly supported clade congruent with the circumscription of the genus Oehmea. Another strongly supported clade was recovered that is outside of the recent circumscription of the genus Pelecyphora, containing the type species for the genus Neobesseya. We transfer two taxa to Oehmea, and we restore Neobesseya and carry out new combinations in that genus. These changes reflect findings from several earlier phylogenies and morphological groups, as well as our own results, and emphasize the value of phylogenomics in better understanding the evolutionary relationships in recently diverging and species-rich genera in Cactaceae.
Because of the usually devastating environmental and economic impacts of escaped, naturalised, and invasive alien plant taxa, including on human livelihoods, their early detection in natural as well as in human-made landscapes has the advantage of facilitating suitable eradication responses. In this paper we report on Hylotelephium & times;mottramianum 'Herbstfreude', which is for the first time recorded as having escaped into natural vegetation in South Africa. To aid its identification, this cultivar is illustrated and biological and descriptive data provided on it, including about its mode of reproduction.
Areoles on roots of Opuntia arenaria contain both trichomes and glochids. These root areoles erupt intact through a periderm. New shoots may arise from root-bearing areoles of O. arenaria either before or after the areoles have erupted through periderms and may do so while the root is either attached or detached from its original shoot and while the root is either above or below ground. Opuntia arenaria roots are unusual for a cactus in being highly mucilaginous, much like their shoots.
The identity between Echinocactus lophothele and Echinocactus rinconensis was ascertained from the correspondence of Salm-Dyck with Engelmann, and from a letter of Poselger to Weber. There are no surviving contemporary preserved specimens and no illustrations accompanied the protologue; therefore, the neotype for E. lophothele is designated here.
