Leptocereus, a genus with its centre of diversity in Cuba, has about five different assemblages of species based on floral features. However, flowers are not always available when identifying plants. Considering wood as a conservative tissue and its previous contributions to the taxonomy and systematics of flowering plants, the wood anatomy of L. arboreus and L. scopulophilus is described and compared with other species of the genus. In wood anatomy, L. arboreus, from central Cuba, differs from the western species by the presence of scalariform intervessel pits, a feature also reported for L. quadricostatus, a species of Puerto Rico and the British Virgin Islands. This fact might indicate that L. arboreus is probably more similar to the eastern species of the genus. Leptocereus scopulophilus is characterized by the predominance of septate fibres and solitary vessels. All the studied Cuban species of Leptocereus have druses in ray cells, a distinct characteristic in Cactoideae.
Vivipary is the germination of a seed inside of a fruit before it is separated from the mother plant. In the present study, the populations of several Cuban cactus species are explored in search of vivipary and Leptocereus scopulophilus is used as a model species to evaluate the effectiveness of vivipary in the establishment of offspring. Vivipary is a relatively common phenomenon in Cuban cacti from different ecosystems with variable temperature, rainfall and salinity, whose frequencies of population vivipary and average of viviparous seedlings per fruit are usually low. In L. scopulophilus, vivipary does not constitute a more efficient reproductive strategy that favors establishment, which is typically the limiting factor for the perpetuation of viviparous species. On the other hand, viviparous seedlings will be favored in environments with high levels of humidity and availability of safe sites, which are sporadic in semiarid environments.
