Pereskia bleo

After a brief research I realized that this is Pereskia bleo instead of my previous post as Pereskia sacharosa. Reason being, this has bright orange flower while sacharosa is supposed to have pink flowers.

Info taken from desert-tropicals.com:

Pereskia is a genus of about 16 species of primitive cacti originating from Mexico to Brazil. Very primitive cactus, they have leaves and are generally not considered succulent. They are deciduous shrubs, small trees, or even climbers. They are named after Nicolas Fabre de Peiresc a French botanist of the 16th century.

Some very interesting findings was found on an article published online for Pharmacognosy magazine: Acute oral toxicity of Pereskia bleo and Pereskia grandifolia in mice.

Pereskia bleo and Pereskia grandifolia, commonly known as ‘Jarum Tujuh Bilah’ in Malaysia belong to the botanical family Cactaceae.

Pereskia bleo can be easily confused with Pereskia grandifolia because they are vegetatively similar. However, they can be easily distinguished by the leaves, flowers, and spines.

Pereskia bleo has thinner, corrugated leaves, and orangish-red flowers, with shorter spines compared to Pereskia grandifolia. In contrast, Pereskia grandifolia has thicker, uncorrugated leaves, and pink to purplish-pink flowers, with longer and lesser spines.

My next mission is to find Pereskia grandifolia for its pink purplish flowers 🙂