Commemorating Nicholas de Peiresc (1580–1637), councillor at Aix and patron of science.
Trees, shrubs or scrambling plants, sometimes with tuberous roots. Leaves with appearance of typical leaves, deciduous, slightly fleshy. Spines in leaf axils of some species. Flowers solitary or in clusters, without a floral tube; stamens at the base of the perianth; mostly late summer to autumn. Pericarpel areoles woolly or spiny. Fruit spherical to pear-shaped, fleshy, sometimes scaly.
Generally grown as P. aculeata Mill., Leaf Cactus or Barbados Gooseberry from tropical America which has white flowers and paired spines in the leaf axils; it is recorded as a garden escape in coastal Queensland.
The cultivar 'Godseffiana' has leaves variegated with yellow to orange and purplish below probably originating in Australia.
One of the few cacti with a hardly fleshy body and typical broad, flat leaves.
16 tropical species from Mexico, West Indies and S America.
Leuenberger (1986).
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.
