Palermo 8:249 Selenicereus donkelaarii (Salm-Dyck) Britton & Rose (1917) Standard Cycl.
affinis (Salm-Dyck) Borg (1951) Cacti 206 Selenicereus grandiflorus var.
12:430 Selenicereus grandiflorus is a cactus species originating from the Antilles, Mexico and Central America.
When Carl Linnaeus described this cactus in 1753 it was the largest flowered species of cacti known.
[citation needed] Paradoxically, its flowers are moderate in size compared with several other Selenicereus species.
Records from Hortus Kewensis gives that the species was grown at Royal Gardens at Hampton Court before 1700.
There has been doubt about which plant was available to Linnaeus when he drew up his description, but this is solved and both the plates on this side show the authentic species.
[clarification needed] It is native throughout the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Cayman Islands, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti), Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, and a few other locations in South and Central America.
It has extremely variable stems, especially in Jamaica, with slightly wavy to strongly knobby margins occurring in the same plant, which causes confusion in cultivation.
S. grandiflorus is a fast-growing epiphytic and lithophytic plant, though it takes two to three years to begin producing blooms.
[3] Keep it on the dry side each winter, and move it outdoors under a shade tree in late spring.
Stems scandent, clambering or sprawling, branching, sometimes forming tangles, producing aerial roots, stiff, to 10 m long or more, (10)15–25(–30)mm thick; ribs (4–)7–8(–10), low, less so on older branches, separated by broad, rounded intervals, slightly wavy to strongly knobby; areoles small, wool white or greyish white, internodes (6–)12–20 mm; spines 5–18, to 4.5–12 mm, basally ca 0,25 mm in diameter, acicular, elliptic or circular in cross section, bulbous basally, spreading, yellowish brown to brownish or yellow, grey in age, eventually deciduous hairs from lower part of areole ± numerous white or brownish, mature vegetative areoles usually lacking hairs, juvenile plants have spines shorter and fewer; epidermis glaucous green or bluish green, often ± purplish, smooth.
Fruit ovoid, 5–9 cm long, 4.5–7 cm thick, whitish, partly pink, pink, yellow or orange, covered with clusters of spines and hairs which soon drop off, juicy, the imbilicus small and inconspicuous.
It is very similar to Selenicereus pteranthus, but stems more slender and spines, longer and yellowish.