How to recognize a bridgesii

[trucha]

I think this is as far as I am goign to take it but hope these four posts can helps us keep our plants on parallel paths rather than puddling into one unworkable morass where they probably belong.

If I HAVE to I'll add more but hopefully this is enough to get this insanity tour started properly.

I was wondering what features can reliably recognize a bridgesii.

[XipeTotec]

big fucking spines

[dqd]

I'd have to second that... though I don't approve of the terminology... it should read

'big fucking POINTY-BITS'

[gilligan]

And usually only 3-4 of them, from what i've seen.

The can taste pretty bitter too

big fucking spines

[trucha]

I can usually easily touch the flesh and handle these too despite those big fucking spines.

That said I've got a few tiny tips from them permanently in my flesh because they are so hard to see once broken off in my knuckles.

Yellow seems a predominate color of the spines but I've seen them form black ones also or go back and forth.

There seems to be as many variants of this one as of pachanoi.

The Huntington has at least 5 distinct ones that I'll have images posted of at some point.

[kadakuda]

mine all have long spines and a dirty yellow spine colour as well.

[nitrogen]

I have some with bright neon yellow new spines, and some with reddish orange spines, and some with the dirty yellowish spines..

And I have one that put out all reddish spines, but recently some neon/bright yellow spines have sprouted out of some areoles!

I also have shorter and longer spined columns from the same mother plant...

I also have columns from the same mother plant that have 2-4 spines per areole on one column, and 5-7 spines per areole on another...

A slender column is a big identifier for a bridgesii I think - not all are, but if they're growing up skinny and aren't super shaded, it probably isn't a pachanoi or peruvianus...

[trucha]

How about some variations on a theme?

All three of these came from a monstrose bridgesii.

The variegated thing was grafted to attempt propagation.

How its spines hold up who knows. ITs interesting they are not the same yellow color as its parent.

I thought THIS was cool! A monstrose branch on a W. Baker 5452 is on the right compared to a normal (greenhouse grown) tip on the left

I got the bottom part but am showing the tip here.

[shruman]

Yeah generaly BFSpines but I do have a short spine specimen.

Generaly pretty fet ribs, fairly generous spacing between areoles often glaucous especialy with shade, often a ribshifter with a tendency to almost go monstrose for short periods of time.

But I agree highly variable.

[M S Smith]

kt, have you seen the numerous comments I've made around regarding both the crest and monstrose forms of T. pachanoi and T. bridgesii being simply two growth characterists on the same plant? Crests spit out monstrose limbs and monstrose limbs less commonly go crested. My own crested T. bridgesii sets multiple "penis plant" limbs and it appears that the crest growth slows significantly if the penis isn't cut off. Interestingly enough, the crest formations are commonly yonic (not as a recepticle, but more labial and clitoral).

~Michael~

[carlosis1also]

kt, have you seen the numerous comments I've made around regarding both the crest and monstrose forms of T. pachanoi and T. bridgesii being simply two growth characterists on the same plant? Crests spit out monstrose limbs and monstrose limbs less commonly go crested. My own crested T. bridgesii sets multiple "penis plant" limbs and it appears that the crest growth slows significantly if the penis isn't cut off. Interestingly enough, the crest formations are commonly yonic (not as a recepticle, but more labial and clitoral).

~Michael~

Talk dirty to me Michael.

[kadakuda]

doesn't the small clumping TBW stay fairly constant? i have never seen a crest come from a clumper.

[M S Smith]

The clumping/monstrose plant seems to be of a different makeup and not the same plant as the crest/monstrose.

~Michael~

[trucha]

There are many known distinct forms.

In some cases normal longispina types put on monstrose branches and normal branches. Monstrose branches from these are more likely to grow normal branches than monstrose. Crests to happen but rarely.

There are also at least several longer branched monstroses that seem to be distinct clones from each other that less often put out entirely normal branches but do put out normal branches. These seem to form crests more often and do go back and forth between monstrose and crest similarly to what one can see in some of the pachanoi monstroses with serious crestation tendencies . These gorgeous creatures are probably what Carlosis1too is referring to. Amazing specimens. (There are at least several disinct clone lines of monstrose/cristate pachanoi as well)

At least one of these stays largely monstrose and puts of normal growth or crests only very rarely if ever. This one can grow quite tall and stay entirely simple monstrose.

The short jointed clumping one is my favorite bridgesii.

I have seen it grow totally nude tips and totally fiercely spined tips. I have also seen it put out longer arching monstrose branches that can be up to several times the typical length of a joint but never a normal branch. I'm not saying it could not happen just that I have never seen it.

I'm not sure it is exactly synonymous with the ones in Oz but they are both very close in appearance and in potency.

A friend smuggled one into the US and I've now watched them grow side by side for two+ years and stay reliably distinctive even though very very close.

The Oz one can form joints that look exactly like the US one but can also form joints that look different. I will have to post pictures to show this as its hard to describe.

The short jointed one in the US only rarely puts out crests but the crest above did arise from one of those. (Its the ONLY crest I've ever seen happen on the short jointed clumper and is not a very fast grower. So far its staying cristate and almost nude but who knows what time will bring?) On the back cover of the San Pedro book is an odd tip that almost looks like a face. This is an image of this same cristate tip when it first started to form.

Oddly, so did the variegated tip AND the more elongated tip with two ribs.

In fact all three of the plants in those images arose from the very same mother plant.

Interestingly the variegated one is now entirely yellow and is starting to turn more columnar but it is still growing - slowly- thanks to being grafted.

Backeberg claimed to be the source for one of these but I have never determined which one.

Edited August 24, 2007 by trucha

[Evil Genius]

[M S Smith]

Looks like snails got to the tip of the tallest one the night before.

~Michael~

[apothecary]

:drool2:

[carlosis1also]

It'll be interesting to see if this tip damage has any effect on increasing side branching or basal pupping.I've given up on insect damage promoting cristation, and I think everyone may agree on that point.This late in your season Michael,before they go into dormancy ,who knows what might develop.Keep us updated on this one please.Damn shame about the Snails,but we all gotta eat.

[M S Smith]

We have lots of snails here, so it's like every time I move something in the yard there is a pack of them, but interestingly enough they don't eat on the plants but once and awhile and they never do so excessively. I actaully don't do a thing about them and just let them eat away as they please. They rarely comeback for seconds (at least the same snail) and I'm curious about what happens to them after the gorge themselves.

They don't cause any lasting damage and the slime seems to be anti-microbial as the wounds they leave have never led to any sort of rot, just a slight green depression at first which then turns brown like in the photo below. I've never had them destroy the apex enough to cause a limb to terminate and pup or go crestate.

~Michael~

[Gunter]

Pardon me for jumping into the topic, but the B&R descriptions mean a bit to me and I recall them saying that bridgesii was very close looking to peruvianus. Now I know that most of us feel confident in demarcating a peruvianus from a bridgesii, but I wonder if such confidence is well founded?

It is almost like bridgesii is thought of as the bolivian peruvianoid with a thinner habit and little differentiation between central and radial spines.

[AndyAmine.]

hmmm, a new blackspot/rot remidy, snail slime.. hehe..

[xerimyco]

II've given up on insect damage promoting cristation, and I think everyone may agree on that point.

Snails are not insects.

Although I don't think insects are the main causative factor in the formation of crests or monstrose specimens, I do think that they are a factor. I think that in plants that are latently cristate or monstrose can be induced to express these traits by meristem stress caused by insect feeding. It seems that it is usually attacks by insects with sucking mouthparts that do this. Especially thrips. Since damage from insects that actually munch on the tissues don't seem to do this, I think it is a microorganism (probably a virus) of some type being vectored by the thrips that triggers the expression. I have seen this may times.

[M S Smith]

Pardon me for jumping into the topic, but the B&R descriptions mean a bit to me and I recall them saying that bridgesii was very close looking to peruvianus. Now I know that most of us feel confident in demarcating a peruvianus from a bridgesii, but I wonder if such confidence is well founded?

It is almost like bridgesii is thought of as the bolivian peruvianoid with a thinner habit and little differentiation between central and radial spines.

Actually it is the other way around. B&R in the T. peruvianus notation said T. peruvianus "resembles T. bridgesii but has stouter and darker spines." They of course did this because they were describing T. peruvianus as a new species while T. bridgesii was already described.

But clearly if the B&R descriptions means “a bit” to you Archaea, and B&R made T. peruvianus a different species than T. bridgesii, one might consider their comments of their differentiation into species as greater than that of their comments regarding resemblance.

Regardless of the relation of these two “species” as drawn through outward appearance or biological similarity I can't see us being well served by disassembling the current nomenclature.

~Michael~

[Gunter]

Actually it is the other way around. B&R in the T. peruvianus notation said T. peruvianus "resembles T. bridgesii but has stouter and darker spines." They of course did this because they were describing T. peruvianus as a new species while T. bridgesii was already described.

Nice.

But clearly if the B&R descriptions means “a bit” to you Archaea, and B&R made T. peruvianus a different species than T. bridgesii, one might consider their comments of their differentiation into species as greater than that of their comments regarding resemblance.

Good point, I guess I see the similarity as signifigant as the difference, but not more so.

Regardless of the relation of these two “species” as drawn through outward appearance or biological similarity I can't see us being well served by disassembling the current nomenclature.

I understand, but I don't understand us as served by the nomenclature so to speak, I guess I think it causes no less confusion than it solves, but that is a damned if you do and don't thing I can live with. I do know the point about how the nomenclature helps us keep the contexts for identity up, but that context is often more subjective than taxonomy would or rather should: entail.

[M S Smith]

I would just hate to see us so devoted to the rules of taxonomy that we determined that the first "species" of "Echinopsis" that was described, and to which T. pachanoi, T. peruvianus, and T. bridgesii, etc., fell into according to flower characteristics became the only species with all others becoming subspecies.

That would be something similar to T. bridgesii being the "species" and T. peruvianus and T. pachanoi being called subspecies of T. bridgesii because the flowers of the three are so similar that the first named species, according to rules of nomenclature (which T.bridgesii is only an example to make a point), should be the only "species."

But you know as well as I do that species are not supposed to be able to cross with anything but their own species therefore since you can cross T. bridgesii with a low growing clumper with red flower, and probably every single Echinopsis there is, these are all in fact the same species.

So in the end, since Trichocereus should have never been broken from Echinopsis, and all can freely mix, the first described Echinopsis should be the "species" and all other should be subspecies. I think Echinopsis eyriesii is the first described Echinopsis so we should then probably have every thing as E. eyriesii ssp. pachanoi, etc. If we were to that though I would probably have something like E. eyriesii ssp. (insert second nomial first described columnar "Trichocereus" here) var. pachanoi, etc. That is assuming all Echinopsis/Trichocereus can freely mix, which I am not certain that is the case and only make such a suggestion to point out issues with nomenclature rather than to be factual about the Echinopsis/Trichocereus genus.

~Michael~

[Gunter]

I can't help but agree with you on this.