Three Pachs for Sale on eBay

[Candella]

A friend of mine is selling three pachs on eBay.

Item numbers are:

220331084813

220331084877

220331084949

Each has two columns of about 70 and 90 cm. Low starting price (he would argue!) of $10 for each of them.

If you don't have any ebay account (and don't want one) but still want to participate, pm me and I'll see what we can organise.

If you win, it's really important that they get taken by the middle of next week, as the people that live in the house where they are at the moment are moving just after Christmas.

cheers!

Candella

[Evil Genius]

Hi Candella! These are scops! bye Eg

[Candella]

Quote from my mate:

"Interesting, thanks for the comment.

I don't know whether there's something about the photos that make them look scop-ish but I'm very curious about what features have made you conclude this.

My thoughts:

1. According to Michael Smith on this thread http://tinyurl.com/46bzf9, scops are generally not glaucous. Mine are very glaucous (which isn't so clear from the photos, but very apparent in real life).

2. The aeroles on pachs tend to be directed upwards. Scops, I think, are level or point downwards, are usually sunken and have very small - if any - spines. Check the scop photo here to see what I mean:

http://www.basementshaman.com/trsc.html

The areoles are pointing down and are spineless. The ones on mine clearly point up, aren't at all sunken and have definite (small) spines (not that this is necessarily a guarantee, I know).

3. Pachs often have horizontal grooves above the areoles, as do mine. I don't believe scops have these.

4. Trout says scops are dark green. These aren't dark green.

5. Scops are said to grow at perhaps half the speed of pachs. Look at the growth marks - these have grown from dehydrated unrooted 20cm cuttings an inch across to total over 1.5-1.7 metres of cactus each in only four growing seasons, in those small pots. Do scops grow that fast (genuine question)?

Maybe they're scops - I'm certainly no expert - but I'd be interested to know what it is about them that led you to conclude that's what they are.

Incidentally, I bought them as "pachanoi cuttings" from a Shaman Australis vendor a few years back. Are any vendors known to have mis-sold scops as pachs?"

Any thoughts?

thanks

Candela

[Ace]

Scops are said to grow at perhaps half the speed of pachs

No scops are definately on par with pach IME (at least for rooted tips), however I have noted that they seem much slower to pup from small midsections whereas pach will usually bust pups out within around a month (I've had the equivalent sized scop cuttings in the ground for about 3-4 months now - still no action), give or take weather conditions.

Edited December 17, 2008 by Ace

[Chiral]

Thats true about scops and slow pupping..I lopped the top off mine about 2 months ago and not one sign of any pups yet ...but my other cactus are pupping away like crazy.

H.

[Candella]

Thanks guys.

So what do you think - are they scops or pachs?

cheers

Candella

[Chiral]

Someone once showed me that a basic way to tell if they are scops is to touch the skin..if its rough its scop..if its smooth its pach...basic I know but scops are definately rough skinned and I'm a total newbie to cactus ID.

H.

[Evil Genius]

Hi Candella! These are definately Scops! Trust me! Its probably the "Friedrich Ritter Scop" which is in cultivation for a long time! Color, growth speed etc depends on many factors! And yes, many people sell scops as pachs! I bought about 20 diffrent scops in my life and none had the correct label! bye Eg

[Evil Genius]

And to make it clear how a scop can also look like....This is a unusual Scop! It IS Glaucous, it HAS Spines and It Has V-Marks! It looks diffrent than other Scops but it is one! Maybe it is a hybrid but the motherplant WAS a Scop!

As mentioned before...all my scops have been sold as Pachs! And i actually prefer them. No one will blame you if you sell them as pachs! Just thought you might want to know. bye Eg

Edited December 18, 2008 by Evil Genius

[toby]

There isn't a PC scop, so scops are all the things people say and others, slow fast, weak strong, spiny spineless etc.

The pics aren;t great but look like PC pachanoi to me?

[Candella]

I'm not an expert, but bear with me for a bit here.

Evil, you initially told me categorically that "These are scops!"

I pointed out (amongst other things) that scops aren't generally glaucous and you posted a picture of a glaucous plant that is by your own admission at best a hybrid of uncertain providence. How is a hybrid's glaucousness relevant to whether mine are scops (you never mentioned the possibility of mine being hybrids)?

And then you even more emphatically insisted "These are definately Scops! Trust me! Its probably the "Friedrich Ritter Scop". No disrespect intended, but why should I trust you when you can't tell me a single feature that mine have that make them definitely scops?

In any event, I spent a bit of time today doing some research, and the following is what I found:

First, it appears that glaucousness is even more definitely not a feature of pure scops than I'd thought - from Trout's Notes http://www.troutsnotes.com/sc/Trichocereus...ter_webpage.htm

"Not glaucous; surface is rougher than T. pachanoi overall (except at growing tip) RB."

"NMCR material grown from FR991 seeds showed glaucous patterns only at transition between recent and older growth. (TROUT)"

(Interestingly, FR991 is precisely what you told me you thought that my plants were, yet Trout says that plants grown from FR991 seeds "show glaucous patterns only at transitions between recent and older growth". I remind you that the entire surface of all my plants are VERY glaucous. And before you mention they were grown from seed and may therefore look different, I also mention that according to more than one discussion I found, scops grown from seed appear truer to (scop) type than just about any other trich. Also on this point, Michael Smith has an FR991 that looks nothing at all like my plants - unfortunately I can't find the link again.)

Final comment on glaucous skin: "The other remarkable thing about scop is that it behaves in a bizzare fashion when it comes to the skin. It gets the black rot like a bridgesii, is rough to the touch like no other, is pale green in full sun/ dark green in shade, and it is NEVER glaucous." (from one of the threads below)

Also from Trout's Notes:

"The ribs are... broadly rounded and blunt" - mine aren't at all rounded - they verge on concave, if anything.

"almost without indentations" - look at the edge of the silhouettes of mine; they have indentations!

"While scopulicola lacks indentations or grooves above the areoles (causing the edges to have a smoother profile than T. pachanoi), it can develop sloping depressions under the areoles with age" - mine is the opposite of this, if anything; the indentations are above the aerole and there is swelling below. The vertical edge of the rib clearly undulates along its length, which is not at all typical of scops.

"The grooves between the ribs are straight & even (RITTER), deep (HEWITT) & more indented than T. pachanoi (RB)" - if anything, the grooves on mine are less deep than an average pach (note: they were very well hydrated when the photos were taken).

The plant you posted a picture of does have the sunken/downward facing aeroles I mentioned and a bulge in the tissue above the aerole. In contrast, look at the silhouette of the aeroles of my plants in the photos - they very clearly have an upward tilt and a slight bulge in the tissue below each aerole. That is not a feature of scops.

More info: http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...showtopic=15806

In particular, refer to the "jelly bean" comments further down the thread. I don't have pictures, but my plants definitely have the "jelly bean" look at every apical meristem. It is suggested in this thread that whilst this doesn't prove it's a pach, jelly bean type growth proves it's not a scop. Not definitive, but interesting.

Also, looking at the pictures of the texture of pachs and scops in that same thread, from memory (I'm not in the same country as the plants) mine are not at all rough like the scop skin shown.

Another comment in that thread: "Scops seem to among the most consistent of the trichs in appearance" - and yet mine don't seem to have ANY of the "usual" characteristics of scops!

I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but to my mind, all you've provided so far is the repeated unsupported insistence that my plants are "definitely scops", along with some justification as to why the absence of virtually all common scop characteristics doesn't prove they aren't! I am genuinely interested in what features you see that led you to such a strong conclusion - and what it evidence it would take to satisfy you otherwise.

By the way, I found a picture of the FR991 scop you mentioned here:

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/inde...mp;#entry172194

The FR991 (that identification was yours, by the way) in that thread has exactly the type of small, recessed aeroles you would expect from a archetypal mature scop - which mine don't have at all. You'll need to trust me when I say that my plants look nothing like those in real life. So either FR991 varies a lot in look (unlikely) or one of your diagnoses of FR991 is wrong.

Incidentally, I may as well fess up and admit that although a friend is selling these while I'm overseas, they're actually mine. I'm not sure why I was being so paranoid as to originally suggest otherwise - habit, I guess.

Anyway, one of these sold yesterday at the buy it now price of $60. The other two represent over 1.6m (per pot) of organically grown, SAB-sourced pachanoi (or scop, depending who you talk to ;) and are presently selling at the bargain price of $10.50 each.

cheers

Candella

[Chiral]

heheheheh nice..I can't wait to pick up my "pach" and bonus "pach" on the weekend..sweeeet.

H.

[Candella]

heheheheh nice..I can't wait to pick up my "pach" and bonus "pach" on the weekend..sweeeet.

H.

Actually, all that stuff I wrote is rubbish. They're scops, but I mucked about with the pics in photoshop to make them look like pachs so I could sell them at a higher price on eBay. I knew someone would swallow it

Anyway, when you've got them in your possession, maybe you can take some better pics and post them on this thread? Might answer the question one way or the other for sure.

cheers

Candella

[Chiral]

yeah definitely will do that...not to keen on you sayin all that stuff you wrote is rubbish though...mmmmmm strange..anyways I own a nice cactus and thats cool.

H.

[Candella]

yeah definitely will do that...not to keen on you sayin all that stuff you wrote is rubbish though...mmmmmm strange..anyways I own a nice cactus and thats cool.

H.

Sorry, that was meant to be a joke to lighten up my dull serious posts on this thread. The winkey was meant to make that clear but I suppose you could read it as sinister too. Trust me when I say that I had better things to do with two hours today than research and write out the above if it was rubbish.

I really just want to know why every single piece of information I have available to me suggests they aren't scops but someone who seems to know what they are talking about is insisting categorically that they are!

cheers

Candella

[Evil Genius]

Hi Candella! Take care and good luck with your sale! bye Eg

Edited December 19, 2008 by Evil Genius

[Candella]

Cool, I'm very interested in your reply.

Enjoy work

cheers

Candella

[Evil Genius]

Oh you got me wrong! there wont be another reply! I already told you my point of view. I respect your opinion about it and thats it! cheers! Eg

Edited December 20, 2008 by Evil Genius

[Chiral]

Okay so I went and picked up my prizes today and took some shots..Im almost certain that the large one is a Scop...I also recieved 3 others 2 in pots and one middle section with a pup..to my eye the others are Pachs...what do you lot reckon...?

Either way its all good and I'm stoked cause my first experience with a tea was a Scop and it blew me away..really really nice brew.

H.

[Teotzlcoatl]

They both appear to be pachanoi to me... I don't see why anybody would think otherwise...

The first one may be a strange strain of pachanoi or even a hybrid of some sort or something new entirely! There's lots of Trichocereus out there! You could have as easily said it was riomizquensis instead of scopulicola!

I think they are both Trichocereus pachanoi. The 2nd one is def. the "P.C." pachanoi clone, no doubt about it.

So how was the bioassy on that strange blue 5-ribbed pachanoi in the 1st pics?

Edited December 20, 2008 by Teotz'

[Evil Genius]

These Pics are a lot better than the first ebay pics! The second one really looks like Pachanoi!

I don't see why anybody would think otherwise...

yeah Teotz, With these close-up pics i can tell either!

My posts were referring to the large plant that was pictured in the auctions! Btw, the large one still looks like a Scop Hybrid to me! Like you already mentioned, It also has similarities to riomizquensis! Wich is considered as a Scop Variety!

Edited December 20, 2008 by Evil Genius

[Candella]

"Oh you got me wrong! there wont be another reply!" Nope, I didn't get you wrong. You originally said you didn't have time to reply because you were heading off to work and would reply later, hence my response. However, it appears you had a change of heart and edited your original reply between me hitting "reply" to your original post and actually submitting my response some time afterwards. That's fine, I can see why you'd be reticent

As for the rest: perhaps surprisingly, all three auctioned plants were grown from identical cuttings bought at the same time from the same vendor, and were indistinguishable from each other when originally potted up. They were sold as pachs and I've never had any reason to believe they were anything else. As I said before, I'm no expert, and all I'd concluded from looking into it the other day is that they aren't pure scops

What might be causing confusion with the new pictures is that I've learned all the plants were left in the shade by my mate over winter and into the new growing season (he's been looking after them since I went to the UK in February). I knew that they'd put on some new growth, but I didn't know there was so much of it, or that it was so dark and etiolated.

Hunab, since the other two went so cheaply compared to yours, I thought I'd throw in all the other plants as a freebie. I hope all the extras go some way to making up for the plants not looking quite like the pictures on eBay. Even though I knew they'd starting growing again (and said so in the auction notes), I didn't know they were quite so different to what was pictured.

Anyway, thanks for all the comments.

cheers

Candella

[Evil Genius]

Hi Candella, yeah i edited because the initial post sounded too unpolite when i read it afterwards. I was in a hurry and therfore i sounded a little bit rough! I did not plan to post anymore because i was so sure from the first pics that i would have gambled away my grandmothers artificial hip! I´m still suprised that they are from the same cutting! But yeah, i believe you! If they are all the same clone, then I was probably wrong! Cause the small one is definately a pachanoi! bye Eg

Edited December 20, 2008 by Evil Genius

[Candella]

Thanks Evil, that's all I needed. Looks like your grandmother gets to stay mobile!

One final comment - I'm pretty sure ALL of these plants have origins in the same batch of identical cuttings, either as direct planting or from pups from those plantings. The ones that were auctioned were treated very well - lots of water, lime, seaweed extract, dynamic lifter, terracotta pots, love, etc.

The freebies were neglected to some extent due to time and space. Amazing what a difference environment makes, eh?

cheers

Candella