The genus Deamia currently contains three species of climbing and epiphytic Cacti from Central America and Mexico. These Cacti show determinate growth (i.e. flowers are produced on the tips of the main stems), have stems covered by a thick, waxy coating, and produce spines on their flowers. Their fruit are red with a white pulp.
In a paper published in the journal Phytotaxa on 20 December 2022, Barry Hammel of the Missouri Botanical Garden and Salvador Arias of the Jardín Botánico at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, describe a new species of Deamia from the Atlantic dry forests of Nicaragua.
The new species is named Deamia funis, in reference to the long, dangling, rope-like stems common in this species when found growing on horizontal branches of trees ('funis' is Latin for 'rope'). It is a root-climbing or trailing epiphyte, with strait, cylindrical, usually pendulous (dangling) stems up to 10 m long and 0.6-1.1 cm in diameter.
The flowers of Deamia funis are produced in the local dry season (January to April). These are funnel shaped structures at the tips of the stem, 8-10 cm long, with at green outer pericarpel with numerous areoles (spine clusters) producing hair-like spines. The flowers open at night, revealing a white interior. Curiously, the stigma (pollen-receptive part of the female sex organs) of Deamia funis project beyond the anthers (pollen producing male organs), an unusual state in Cacti.
Deamia funis has only been observed growing at elevations of between 322 and 423 m above sealevel in the fog-zones of dry, seasonal forests on the Atlantic watershed of central Nicaragua, although Hammel and Arias note that this ecosystem extends into neighbouring Honduras, and the species could potentially live there also. All three areas where the species has been seen growing are outside of protected zones, and the total distribution of the species probably covers less than 5000 km². Furthermore, all of this habitat is considered to be at risk from the expansion of Cattle ranching in the area, for which reasons Hammel and Arias consider that Deamia funis should be considered to be Endangered under the terms of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species.
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