Rhipsalis juengeri

This new taxon is remarkable for its extremely slender, greatly elongated axes. In its vegetative habit it looks like a giant slender version of R. campos-portoana, but has differently coloured fruit. The plant was originally received from an amateur collector who had obtained it in Brazil without giving precise provenance data and claiming that it was the only Rhipsalis that never flowers! In fact, it must grow to 2 metres in length before beginning to flower and does so freely only when 3 metres of growth have been attained, expanding its flowers in late winter to early spring (in Germany). It is adapted to an epiphytic habit on rather large trees, but its range and ecology remain poorly understood since it is not presently known from herbarium collections of wild origin, being too difficult to distinguish from its allies once pressed and mounted on the standard-sized herbarium sheet! However, what appears to be this plant was recently observed in habitat, sympatric with R. burchellii, at the Fazenda Intervales forest reserve, Mun. Sete Barras, São Paulo. Its purplish, grape-like fruits most nearly resemble those of R. burchellii, while its flowers are closer to those of R. campos-portoana, but we do not suppose it to be of hybrid origin for the reasons already discussed under R. ewaldiana.A