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EPIPHYLLUM
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EPIPHYLLUM.—This name is now restricted to two or three dwarf branching Brazilian epiphytal plants of extreme beauty, which agree with Phyllocactus in having the branches dilated into the form of fleshy leaves, but differ in having them divided into short truncate leaf-like portions, which are articulated, that is to say, provided with a joint by which they separate spontaneously; the margins are crenate or dentate, and the flowers, which are large and showy, magenta or crimson, appear at the apex of the terminal joints. In E. truncatum the flowers have a very different aspect from that of other Cacti, from the mouth of the tube being oblique and the seg, ments all reflexed at the tip. The short separate pieces of which these plants are made up grow out of each other, so that the branches may be said to resemble leaves joined together endwise.