Talk:Epiphyllum oxypetalum

This is not correct

Epiphyllum oxypetalum

Epiphyllum oxypetalum, the Dutchman's pipe cactus, princess of the night or queen of the night.

The correct Queen of the Night/Night Queen is Selenicereus grandiflorus. Oxypetalum is refered to as The Princess of the Night Hoyacactus (talk) 08:37, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Your comment is inaccurate and could be easily clarified by a Google search. Common names are often imprecise and the same common name can refer to multiple species; the disambiguation page for Queen of the Night refers to four different species and that’s without mentioning the famous tulip cultivar. Kazamzam (talk) 14:03, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Distribution

According to the citation (and many other sources), the native distribution is: "Northern America SOUTHERN MEXICO: Mexico [Chiapas, Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave] Southern America

CENTRAL AMERICA: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, El Salvador" This is not the same as "extensive areas of South America." Grouchymarx (talk) 05:47, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

This article contains contradictions. In the first paragraph, it says the native range is from Mexico to Nicaragua. Then, under "Range," it says, "Epiphyllum oxypetalum is native to Southern Mexico and to extensive areas of South America." I believe that a better description for "Range" would be, "Epiphyllum oxypetalum is native to southern Mexico and Central America, but now has a much wider distribution. It is cultivated in tropical and subtropical areas around the world, sometimes escaping cultivation and becoming naturalized.

Grouchymarx (talk) 22:56, 13 August 2024 (UTC)Grouchymarx

References

Introductory paragraph contains little information about topic

First, I don't understand why it says at the top, "Not to be confused with Saussurea obvallata." They look very different.

Much of the first paragraph is about different taxa, and it just sounds kind of unscientific. For instance, "...not closely related to any of the species in the tribe Cereeae, such as Selenicereus." For one thing, it says "species" where it should say "genera," but more importantly, according to at least 4 scientific papers I've seen (the most recent from 2017), both Selenicereus and Epiphyllum are in the tribe Hylocereeae. For the intro I propose:

"Epiphylum oxypetalum, queen of the night, lady of the night, climbing cactus, orchid cactus, Dutchman's pipe cactus, night-blooming cereus: a spineless epiphytic or lithophytic cactus native to southern Mexico and Central America which is widely cultivated and in some areas has become naturalized. Growing 3 meters (9 feet) or more, it is highly branched, with cylindrical stems, flat branches and aerial roots. It bears large, mostly white, fragrant, moth-pollinated flowers that open for a single night. Although it was originally named Cereus oxypetalus, it is not closely related to cacti in the Cereus genus, and should not be confused with other species that share the common name, night-blooming cereus."

How does that sound?

I have never seen it called princess of the night. Grouchymarx (talk) 00:18, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Saussurea obvallata is also a (relatively) well known night-blooming plant; it blooms once a year, typically at midnight. Hence the potential confusion between E. oxypetalum and Saussurea obvallata. Kazamzam (talk) 00:26, 16 August 2024 (UTC)