Pereskia bleo (Kunth) DC.

ലീഫ് കാക്ട്‌സ്

Family : CACTACEAE

Synonym :

 Cactus bleo Kunth

Common Names : Leaf Cactus

Flowering Period : Throughout the year

Distribution : Native of tropical America

Habitat : Grown as garden plant

Uses : Ornamental plant. Leaves - cooked and eaten as a vegetable. The plant is sometimes said to be used as a hedge plant.

Key Characters :

Grown as a shrub or small tree and reaches a height of 2 to 8 metres with trunks up to 15 centimetres in diameter. The olive-green to brownish grey branches are smooth. The leaves are arranged alternately on the branches and are distinctly stalked with petioles up to 3 centimetres long. The leaf blade is 6 to 20 centimetres long and 2 to 7 centimetres wide, elliptic to oblong or lanceolate in shape. The five nerved leaf blades have four to six, often fork-shaped, side lobes. The thorns are either parallel in bundles or spread widely out. Long thorns on the branches are up to five to ten millimetres long. Along the main shoots there are up to 40 spines per areole, each 2 centimetres long. The flowers are arranged in terminal lateral inflorescences. The bare, bright red, scarlet, salmon pink and orange-red-pink flowers reach diameters of 4 to 6 centimeters. The fruits are conical, truncated in the apex, ripening yellow. They are edible but sour tasting. They contain lenticular seeds. The seeds are 7.81 mm long and 6.45 mm wide.