Greek eu—well, like, lychnos—torch, referring to the torch-like stems.
Body shrubby or tree-like, to several metres tall stems ribbed, some-times prostrate. Ribs 9-16, often with vicious spines. Flowers small, bell-shaped with an extremely short tube bearing numerous scales which have bristles and woolly hairs in their axils; perianth segments pink or white. Fruit spherical to pear-shaped, fleshy, usually scaly or hairy and with persistent perianth remnants.
Available mostly as E. saint-pieana F. Ritter from N Chile which has a pericarpel and flower tube densely woolly with brown to white hairs and perianth segments mostly white with a pink midstripe and large pear-shaped fruit to 8 cm long; especially hairy when young.
Flowers bell-shaped, the tube shorter than the pericarpel; floral tube densely scaly.
8 species, 7 in Chile and 1 from Peru.
Source: (1997). Cactaceae. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 2. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 1. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.
