Fouquieria is a genus of 11 species of desert plants, the sole genus in the family Fouquieriaceae. The genus includes the ocotillo (F. splendens) and the boojum tree or cirio (F. columnaris). They have semi-succulent stems with thinner spikes projecting from them, with leaves on the bases spikes. They are unrelated to cacti and do not look much like them; their stems are proportionately thinner than cactus stems and their leaves are larger.
These plants are native to northern Mexico and the bordering US states of Arizona, southern California, New Mexico, and parts of southwestern Texas, favoring low, arid hillsides.
Read about Fouquieria in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Fouquieria (Pierre Ed. Fouquier, professor of medicine at Paris in the first part of the nineteenth century). Fouquieriaceae. Candlewood. Four species from the deserts of Mexico and one extending into the United States and sometimes cultivated in the larger rockeries of California. These plants are interesting as being an example of an order far removed from the Cactaceae in flowers and fruit but reduced to something of their habit by the desert conditions. Small trees or shrubs, becoming leafless in dry weather, with showy tubular fls. in terminal racemes or panicles: lvs. fleshy, obovate, fascicled in the axils of thorns: sepals 5; corolla with a spreading 5-lobed limb; stamens 10-?; styles 3, separate or united: seeds with a membranous wing or fringed with long hairs. Fouquieria is by some authors retained in the Tamaricaceae.
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Read about Fouquieria in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture
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Fouquieriaceae (from the genus Fouquieria, named in honor of Pierre E. Fouquier, professor of medicine at Paris). Candlewood Family. Similar to the Tamaricaceae and formerly united with that family, but differing in the gamopetalous corolla, the ligule-bearing, hairy stamens, partially united styles, median ovules instead of basal, and leaves without crystal glands or epidermal glands. The single genus and about 4 species are natives of Mexico and the southwestern United States. F. splendens is the ocotilla, coach-whip cactus, vine cactus, or Jacob's staff of the Southwest, a spiny cactus-like shrub used by the Mexicans to make impenetrable hedges. A useful wax is obtained from the cortex of this species. The cortex is also used medicinally. This species is in cultivation in the larger rockeries of California.CH
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Species
- Fouquieria burragei Rose
- Fouquieria columnaris (Kellog) Kellog ex Curran
- Fouquieria diguetii (Tiegh.) I.M.Johnst.
- Fouquieria fasciculata Nash
- Fouquieria formosa Kunth
- Fouquieria leonilae Miranda
- Fouquieria macdougalii Nash
- Fouquieria ochoterenae Miranda
- Fouquieria purpusii Brandegee
- Fouquieria shrevei I.M.Johnst.
- Fouquieria splendens Engelm.
They do not have a particularly close resemblance to any other sort of plants; genetic evidence has shown that they belong in the Ericales. Prior to this, they had been variously placed in the Violales or their own order Fouquieriales.wp
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References
- Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, by L. H. Bailey, MacMillan Co., 1963
External links
- w:Fouquieria. Some of the material on this page may be from Wikipedia, under the Creative Commons license.
- Fouquieria QR Code (Size 50, 100, 200, 500)