The
taxon was first described as a section,
Cereus sect.
Selinicereus, by
Alwin Berger in 1905. It was raised to a genus by Britton and Rose in 1909. The name is derived from Σελήνη (
Selene), the Greek moon goddess, referring to the nocturnal flowers, and
cereus, meaning "candle" in
Latin, a name used for upright cacti. A
molecular phylogenetic study of the tribe
Hylocereeae in 2017 showed that the genus
Hylocereus was nested within
Selenicereus, so all the species of
Hylocereus were transferred to
Selenicereus. , the transfer was accepted by
Plants of the World Online. The authors of the 2017 study also placed some species of
Weberocereus within
Selenicereus, which was not accepted by Plants of the World Online .
Phylogeny The
cladogram below shows the relationships found in the 2017 study of the tribe Hylocereeae. }}
Selenicereus belongs to the hylocereoid clade, along with
Weberocereus. Members of the clade are mostly climbing or epiphytic, and have spiny ribbed stems, contrasting with members of the phyllocactoid clade, which are mainly epiphytic, and have spineless flattened leaf-like stems.
Species Species placed in the genus by Korotkova et al. in 2017 are listed below. The list includes three species formerly placed in
Weberocereus, whose transfer was not accepted by Plants of the World Online . Species formerly recognized include: •
Selenicereus boeckmannii –
synonym of
Selenicereus pteranthus •
Selenicereus brevispinus – synonym of
Selenicereus pteranthus •
Selenicereus chontalensis – synonym of
Deamia chontalensis •
Selenicereus coniflorus – synonym of
Selenicereus grandiflorus •
Selenicereus hallensis – synonym of
Selenicereus grandiflorus •
Selenicereus urbanianus – synonym of
Selenicereus grandiflorus •
Selenicereus rubineus – synonym of
Selenicereus inermis •
Selenicereus wercklei – synonym of
Selenicereus inermis •
Selenicereus wittii – synonym of
Strophocactus wittii ==Uses==