Jump to content
The Corroboree
  • 0
cactuscarl

"chilensis" id

Question

Hi all i had a cactus i thought was chilensis for trade and a few ppl thought my id was off so i took a pic of its flower to get a positive id

 

post-7956-0-23899200-1334093452_thumb.jp

post-7956-0-23899200-1334093452_thumb.jpg

post-7956-0-23899200-1334093452_thumb.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

16 answers to this question

Recommended Posts

  • 0

Hi Carl, can you please post another pic of the back of the flower and maybe one more from the front with more natural colors? Is the flower white or rose colored? My first gut instinct is that despite my first impression, you may have been right from the beginning and that it really looks like the flower of a Trichocereus Chilensis.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

It still looks wrong for chilensis even wrong for Tricho for me.

There seems to be an over abundance of stigma & much smaller stigma than I would expect for a Tricho. The shape, size & length does not fill me with confidence either. Would love a side on shot showing the funnel & pics of fruit if you have any?

How tall is this cactus?, the description says to 3m.

The description for chilensis says columnar branching from base while your plant looks to be prawling almost prostrate in habit.

How is the rib count?, I know its not the best indicator but the descrip says 16-17, yours would apear far lower.

Whats the dia of those branches looks a little skinny.

The hair appears to be on both top & bottom of the areoles, a flowering Tricho only makes hair on top of the areoles as far as I know.

"T. chilensis (Colla) Br. & R. (2)

Bo. columnar, branching from the base, to over 3 m h.; branches numerous, stout; Ri. to 16-17, low, broad, tuberculate; Rsp. 8—12, to 4cm long.; Csp. 1, short, to 4—7(—12) cm long.; Sp. amber at first, or blackish, tobacco-brown or intermediate shades, later whitish-grey, often darker-tipped; Fl. to 14cm long., concolorous white; Sep. reddish or brownish-white; Sti. cream; Fr. spherical.—Chile (Prov. Atacama to Prov. Curico, with a distribution measuring 600 km from N. to S.).

A very variable spec., hence the many synonymous names for forms. The specific name was first written as “chiloensis”; acc. Skottsberg this could be regarded as an incorrect spelling of a geographical name, and could therefore be amended (the plant certainly does not grow in Chiloë); the spelling “chilensis” was used by both Pfeiffer and Schumann.

v. ebnrneus (Phil.) Marsh. appears to be more justifiable as a variety; Ba. stouter; Sp. brownish at first, soon becoming ivory-white; Fl. pink, or suffused pink (Marshall, Borg).

The spec. has at times been confused with T. litoralis (Joh.) Loos., also from Chile, which it somewhat resembles; T. litoralis has yellowish Sp. which are appreciably shorter, while the Fl. are believed to remain open for several days.

This guy has some good pics on chilensis:

http://www.eriosyce..../chiloensis.htm

& his Flickr site alot of pics but well worth the time:

http://www.flickr.co...in/photostream/

Heres what I was looking for, his chilensis file:

hxxp://www.flickr.com/photos/cactushorridus/sets/72157623067772669/with/193182047/

Espostoa might be somewhere to look?

Edited by shruman

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

I'll upload a pic when it flowers next could be a while tho. So here is my attempt at a description

The arms are about 10cm thick with at least 10 ribs. The main stem is about a metre and a half with 12 arms i don't think it could ever get to 3 metres tall. The flower tube is about 10cm long and about 2cm thick and the pettles spread about 4-5 cm and it flowers a lot but never fruits

cheers

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

There is a huge number of plants that is available on the market as Trichocereus Chilensis. The plant has many varieties and some of them may not even belong into the species so i am very hesistant to call this a Chilensis either but the flower comes pretty close to the ones i know as authentic but cant upload a pic of here because they are copyrighted. But its impossible to say without having seen the flower tube and the rest of the back-side. Also, you will need to make sure the pic has a natural contrast.

Chilensis grows as huge colums that can get up to 8 meters but only under ideal conditions and not in culture. Most plants in culture reach 2 to 3 meters. Like i said, because of the wide distribution of Chilensis, there are many natural hybrids that are considered varieties. I know that there are even hybrids of Chilensis with Aporocactus and this one could as well be one of them as well. Descriptions should be taken with a grain of salt but i agree it does not look like a typical Chilensis and it could as well be from another family that has similar flowers. However, at this moment its my best bet until i can see better pics of the flower.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

pilocereus?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

Good thought. Flower looks kinda related to pilosocereus now that you say it.

Carl, whats the history of this plant? You mentioned something about your chef having described it as chilensis? Is the plant an import from a nursery or something like that? If so, do you know from which country? Is this seed grown or bought as plant?

I will need to wait for the pics of the backside before i can say more. There are just too many possibilities. There are so many columnar cacti and some of them are hardly known because they are rare and were only pictured in a handfull bad pics. Will check a few books and post more when the pics are online.

Edited by Evil Genius

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

its a nice cactus ,id be keen on it if i werent moving... Theres that columnar cacti id website i would post a link to if i wasnt on my phone.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

I think your on the right track there blowng.

Do we get a cutting if we get it right? :P

"Descriptions should be taken with a grain of salt"

I see where you are coming from but they are still useful as a general guide. The best part about the description for chilensis is where it says a 'highly variable species' :P

Edited by shruman

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

Exactly shruman. You know, have been reading like 10 diffrent descriptions of Chilensis today. All differ greatly from each other so i pretty much lost interest right away. Backeberg kinda said he cant be bothered to list all the varieties. lol. And i assume that half of the varieties he mentioned (without being able to provide pics to back up his claims) arent even real Chilensis. So i think our best way to ID is the flower.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

Yeah i know what you mean i read a description that said tree like and branchin.

I don't know much about the plant my boss bought some old ladies collection from au she had it labeled as chilensis along with a hole bunch of very cool very old plants like a 1.5 metre terscheckii and 4 metre neobauxbuma

Anyways here's another pic hope it helps

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

Here's a pic of my chilensis, not much to look at, it's only 50 cm tall

post-3765-0-59116500-1334186392_thumb.jp

post-3765-0-59116500-1334186392_thumb.jpg

post-3765-0-59116500-1334186392_thumb.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

Thanks for posting carl. Absolutely not Trichocereus Chilensis. Looks like Pilosocereus but will have a close look later when i have shaved my legs. :wink:

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

Cactuscarl, I'd say Pilosocereus for sure...if you want to find out exactly which then Bob Ressler has 5 albums you can dig through. Good luck! And zelly, yours doesn't look like T. chilensis either.

http://community.web...rcacti?start=42

~Michael~

Edited by M S Smith

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

the fluff is a bit of a give away, still a wicked cactus to have im sure you could cross it with a tricho, which is what im after lots of flowering age plants to cross with.... now only 10 years to wait :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
  • 0

from what I read it is one of the slowest growing too

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×