AlbertKLloyd

Looks like a hybrid, could be anything. Lots of crosses look like that.

In my experience feeding the plants during blooming and fruit set increases the health and viability of the seed.

http://www.peyoteway.org/index.php

And yet the (potential) existence of intermediate populations that gain species status totally undermines relationship values for genetic and morphological data. it is wise to ignore this and just pretend that the data is meaningful? It seems like really bad science to not gather enough data to consider this carfully. Somatic DNA alone, nuclear DNA alone and Morphological data alone are all incapable of dealing with this. I disagree that all cacti can be considered hybrids of non-conspecific hybrids. That seems absurd.

This is true, however the view that populations only diverge is totally false. Some populations in the cactus family, and in the BTC clade appear to originate as intermediates or hybrids between other species. This reality totally undermines this type of paper as well as any singular data. Nuclear DNA and chloroplast DNA are needed to generate good data. That is part of why I think the above paper is worse than worthless.

http://www.cactusconservation.org/CCI/library/pdf/Albesiano_Terrazas_2012_Haseltonia_17_3-23.pdf Cladistic Analysis Of Trichocereus (Cactaceae: Cactoideae: Trichocereeae) Based On Morphological DATA And Chloroplast Dna Sequences Sof ía Albesiano I wanted to address and discuss this paper. It is based on chloroplast sequences and morphological data. Here is one of its vital flaws, if you cross two different species in this group, like pachaoi and bridgesii, the chloroplasts are going to be inherited by the seeds from the mother plant that bears them. This thows the data off. T bridgesii is listed in the paper as having a chloroplast DNA sequence that appears ancestral to the clade, but because of the inheritance patterns this result can be questioned strongly. if I use pachanoi pollen on a bridgesii, then the offspring will have the chloroplast DNA of the bridgesii, the reverse cross has the DNA of the pachanoi. Because of the way the plants in this genera can cross, we need chromosomal DNA analysis combined with chloroplast DNA sequences to generate useful data. The authors do not appear to aknowledge that these plants can cross and when their ranges overlap they do, interspecific hybrids are known to occur in the wild in this genera!! Evidently bridgesii was such an issue with regard to this that the authors included it in figures 1 and 2, but omitted it from figure 3. Figure 1 is a chart made from morphological data (I consider this a joke), figure 2 is another chart made from the chloroplast DNA sequences (again deeply flawed due to inheritance patterns and cross compatability) however figure 3 is a hybrid made from the two previous figures and data. In figure 1 bridgesii is associated with pachanoi and peruvianus, in figure 2 it is ancestral to the entire clade! in figure 3 it is missing entirely. There are many issues with this paper and I consider it totally inconclusive and even potentially misleading. The paper even includes two synonyms of the same species as distinct, see if you can spot them. They are morphologically distinct and due to inheritance patternd could have distinct DNA sequences for chloroplasts, but that does not mean they are distinct species. There are other issues with the paper concerning method, collection and location data etc. I find it to be a joke.

great resources! Thanks for posting! http://www.cactusconservation.org/CCI/library/pdf/Albesiano_Terrazas_2012_Haseltonia_17_3-23.pdf In regards to this paper, I have many issues with it, I cannot say much if anything good about it. if you read it follow T bridgesii through it, look at figures 1,2 and 3 and locate it in them...

My attempts to employ Ca hydroxide to allow my peanut cactus to pollinate itself failed...

Yesterday I attempted this technique with E. chamaecereus, a self sterile cactus. When it goes unpollinated the flowers last several days, opening and closing each day, however the flower I tried this with closed yesterday and did not open today, instead it has all of the appearance of a flower that has been sucesfully pollinated. Time will tell if it produces fruit and seed, however the inital indication is very positive. Thanks EG!

I have a plant with these at every single areole, it is just shy of a meter tall. It is a hybrid of a pach form and a peruvianoid form.

Alexander introduced Buddhism to greece, some feel this played a role in the renaissance and there are clear influences of Asian culture in Italty, due to the silk/spice routes. What are your thoughts on the influence of Buddhism on grecian culture including art?

I searches the Internet archive for it http://web.archive.org/web/20010630001926/http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=665768 it has the list of what was there and some album descriptions that are interesting, but I don't think the photos were captured by the archive

If a primary threat is habitat loss, decimated areas then tend to be incapable of being re-planted...or? What would such an efforts entail? Putting out thousands of seedlings in the right habitat and with the right nurse plants? So Trout, have any of the studied populations been targeted for harvesting due to their being included in the study? I wondered if a lack of greater efforts in terms of cultivation could be construed as a threat as well.

Excelent information as always. I am reminded of Trichocereus, they often have very wet winters where they grow but are also found on rocky slopes and planted on stone walls as you know. The free draining environment prevents waterlogging when there is more than a meter of rain in the coldest times of the year. Lophophora as you know also endure wetter conditions during the colder times of the year in much of their native range. Often people who cultivate them suggest keeping them dry in the winter and wet in the summer, but as you have also pointed out they tend to be grown in richer soils in terms of cultivation and this can pose a challenge in terms of mimicing the environmental conditions they originate in. With a mineral based substrate such cold and wet conditions are far less problematic than they would be with a substrate that contains more organic matter. Trout, if you do not mind my asking, what neutralizes the native substrates they grow in? Despite being Ca rich you have related they are often near neutral in pH, is this due to humic acid from the breakdown of their host plants litter?

Great thread. It makes me wonder if volcanic ash couds in the past have promoted self fertilization, particularly in a time when the environment was not conducive to pollinators like flying insects. Such a reaction to alkali could be handy in an evolutionary sense as a means to produce seeds before or during a volcanic winter, this would give the species a greater chance of survival, especially if the volcanic winter had the capacity to kill living plants but leave seed banks relatively untouched. I may try this with Echinopsis chamaecereus and calcium hydroxide soon.