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Updated: May 4, 2025
One of the most striking plants in this order is the "Old Man Cactus," botanically known as Pilocereus senilis, which is the only member of this genus that has become at all known in English gardens. The limits of the genus Pilocereus are not definitely fixed, different botanists holding different views with respect to the generic characters. Recent writers, and among them the late Mr.
A remarkable instance of this has been recorded by Mr. J. R. Jackson, curator of the museums at Kew. A plant of Pilocereus senilis, which had grown too tall for the house, was cut off at the base, and placed in the museum as a specimen. Here it gradually dried up to within 2 ft. of the top, where a fracture across the stem had been made.
They come next to Cereus, and are distinguished as follows: ECHINOPSIS. Stem as in Echinocactus, but the flowers are produced low down from the side of the stem, and the flower tube is long and curved. PILOCEREUS. Stem tall, columnar, bearing long silky hairs as well as spines; flowers in a head on the top of the stem, rarely produced.
Bentham, sunk the genus under Cereus; but there are sufficiently good characters to justify us in retaining, for garden purposes, the name Pilocereus for the several distinct plants mentioned here.
The above is a key to the genera on the plan of the most recent botanical arrangement, but for horticultural purposes it is necessary that the two genera Echinopsis and Pilocereus should be kept up.
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