Copyright by: George D. Gann
in habitat, The Exumas, Bahamas, 2009
Family: Cactaceae
Group: Dicot
Substrate:
Terrestrial
Habit:
Tree
Perennation:
Perennial
Native Range: South Florida and the West Indies (Cuba, Bahamas, Hispaniola).
Map of select IRC data for peninsular Florida
IRC SOUTH FLORIDA Status:
Possibly Extirpated or Extinct in the Wild
SOUTH FLORIDA Occurrence:
Present
SOUTH FLORIDA Native Status:
Native
South Florida History and Distribution: Ranked as critically imperiled in Rare Plants of South Florida (
Gann et al. 2002; pp 293-294) based on one occurrence at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park of the Monroe County Keys. This has been in decline in the wild for many years and the last known plants have been removed and placed into an ex-situ conservation collection. As a result, we have re-ranked this as possibly extirpated in the wild.
SOUTH FLORIDA Cultivated Status:
Cultivated
Comments: This has been misidentified as
P. bahamensis and treated as a broadly defined concept of
P. polygonus. For a recent taxonomic revision of this and other Caribbean
Pilosocereus, see
Franck et al. (2019).
Synonyms: P. bahamensis, misapplied;
Pilosocereus polygonus, misapplied.
