Pereskia grandifolia

Range and name circumscription

The natural range includes eastern and southern Brazil. POWO also lists numerous areas of introduction in the tropics. Plants found outside the native range may come from cultivation, so the location of a usage account need not be a place of natural occurrence. [2-WWW]

Rhodocactus grandifolius is a synonym in the classification adopted. The former Pereskia grandifolia var. violacea and P. grandifolia subsp. violacea, however, correspond to present-day Pereskia violacea. A result obtained for undifferentiated material labelled P. grandifolia is not automatically assigned to both currently accepted species. [2-WWW] [Asai and Miyata 2016]

Habit and identification at flowering

In the description of the former nominate variety, corresponding to present-day Pereskia grandifolia, shrubs reached 2–5 m, and individual tree-like stems up to 10 m. Leaves are elliptical to elongated, relatively thin, green on both sides and pointed. Green bracts, leaves accompanying flowers, distinguish them from the purple bracts of P. violacea. [Leuenberger 1986, Pereskia grandifolia var. grandifolia description]

Inner tepals are pink to dark pink, 15–32 mm long, and anthers golden yellow. Fruits have a variable pear-shaped or angular form and are often almost as wide as long. Assessing bud and bract colour is particularly useful in a living plant, since drying herbarium material obscures some colour differences. [Leuenberger 1986, Pereskia grandifolia var. grandifolia description]

The monograph indicates sites in lowland and lower montane eastern Brazil, up to about 1000 m, in forests, secondary scrub and coastal restinga vegetation. Plants are also planted in fences. Distinguishing natural occurrence from planting matters when reconstructing habitat requirements. [Leuenberger 1986, Pereskia grandifolia var. grandifolia description]

Well-developed leaves and short shoots

The species belonged to the group for which Asai and Miyata emphasised leaves on brachyblasts, short shoots with very short internodes. Foliage is then not restricted to new, elongating shoots. This trait was one morphological argument for distinguishing Rhodocactus. The current atlas retains its description while using the broader Pereskia circumscription adopted by POWO. [Asai and Miyata 2016] [2-WWW]

Temperature and germination

In Souza and colleagues' experiment, seeds came from fruits of one mother plant. Five constant temperatures from 24 to 36°C were compared, using moist filter paper, four replicates, eight hours of light and sixteen hours of darkness. Observation lasted 21 days. Limited seed provenance matters when applying results to other collections. [Souza et al. 2016, p. 7–8]

The highest mean germination percentages were 85% at 30°C and 84% at 33°C. The table assigned them to the same statistical group. At 24°C, 40% germinated, and at 27 and 36°C, 53% each. The authors' final conclusion points to 33°C, but the table does not support claiming that germination percentage was higher there than at 30°C. These are seed-test conditions rather than the recommended temperature for keeping an adult plant. [Souza et al. 2016, table 2, p. 8]

Leaves in food

Pereskia grandifolia is, alongside P. aculeata, one of the species discussed as ora-pro-nobis. Its nutritional composition, phenolic components and mucilages have been studied. A similar use name does not imply identical composition of the two species, since results also depend on material, growing conditions and sample preparation. [Teixeira et al. 2023]

The review highlights antinutritional factors and changes during heating. Loss of some minerals or a change in fibre is a different outcome from improved digestibility. Assessing leaves as food requires considering these processes together, rather than selecting the highest content of a single component. [Teixeira et al. 2023]