What is Trichocereus pallarensis

[Bryce]

I just purchased a cactus called Trichocereus bridgesii x pallarensis. To me it looks pretty much pachanoi. I can't find any photos of pallarensis, I did find a description but I don't know if it was trust worthy. Here is a photo from the ad when I purchased the cutting. Can anyone source me to valid source with photos of pallarensis? Does my cutting look more pachanoi? If you wonder why I purchased it not being sure then I would let you know the ad was for 4 total pieces of various cactus for super cheap and this one was one of them.

[hostilis]

I've heard of pallarensis before, but I've never seen a photo of one.

[MrDoRight]

Hybrids are young like ,1st and 2nd generation so your probually one of the few people growing this particular clone Hybrids can have different appearances from their parents. Give it a few years and the plant should start showing its true appearance . I have a regular pallarensis , which is a peruvian torch that grows pretty stout , and has spines that variate , the top 3-5 spines are very long and look Bridesoid , while the lower 5-7 spines are very short like a pachanoi.

[Brendo]

Hi Bryce,

I'm currently growing a Trichocereus Pallarensis which was crossed with Echinopsis Los Banos. It would've been between 1-3 years old when I purchased it, I've had it for about 18months and it's close to 2 foot now It's a beautiful cactus, an absolute stunner, although I'm not sure which traits come from which plants as I've seen neither on their own, but I'll snap a shot for you thisafternoon!

[katu]

From what I understand this "species" was originally described by F.Ritter. There seems to be two forms floating around. FR676 and FR1468. Will check my notes(Trouts notes ) for more collection data if u like? The name as I understand it is defunct and is most likely a form of peruvianoid. I'm in no way an expert though and you would be best off doing a little research yourself, no offence. Hope this helps

[Evil Genius]

Ritter considered Pallarensis a slightly different Variety of Trichocereus Pachanoi. But he was well aware it was a nomen nudum. Naming Cacti was just "IN" that Time. bye Eg

[Bryce]

The piece I have in the picture is a pinch over one foot in length and is pretty heavy in mass. Can any one explain who Ritter and Trout are. I need to look more into those sites.

[Evil Genius]

Friedrich Ritter was a german Cactus Expert and Collector. Author or Kakteen in Suedamerika 1-4. And Trout is our dear Friend K.Trout from troutsnotes.com and Largelyaccurateinformationmedia.com! bye Eg

[Bryce]

Looking at the sites it almost seems as though Trichocereus need a sit down lesson. I have a bunch of different kinds with so many questions now I think my head is going to fall off.

[M S Smith]

Here's a pretty typical T. pallarensis that I grew from Sacred Succulent seed.

Here's one I have that originally came from the Berkeley Botanical Garden. Not much difference accept in the spines.

If you regard T. pachanoi and T. peruvianus as the two extremes of a single species, as I do, then T. pallarensis is just one of the many that lay in-between.

~Michael~

Edited April 19, 2014 by M S Smith

[Bryce]

Supposedly the hybrid cross I have is from Sacred Succulents. I was confused as mine has short spines. I saw a description that suggested pallarensis has long spines. So in my mind I did not see how I could have short spines from 2 long spined species. As I see from your photo they can have either.

[Evil Genius]

The same applies to Trichocereus pachanoi too btw. Short and long spines!

[Bryce]

A friend of mine had the long spined pachanoi and I wanted a piece but he gave the whole thing to his mom because she said it was pretty. He also has a blue one of which I did not know pachanoi came blue.

The same applies to Trichocereus pachanoi too btw. Short and long spines!

[Evil Genius]

Skin color, Spines and Spine Lenght are extremely variable and directly related to the environment. Honestly, under certain Conditions, Pachanoi and Peruvianus can be so similar that it´s hard to differentiate between them for the untrained Eye.

[Halcyon Daze]

You realize you're getting free lessons from a master here, Bryce.

Keep working that search engine bro

[Evil Genius]

If I´d be a Master, the cactus scene would be in serious shit! I label my plants according to my mood.

[Bryce]

I am here because the search engine world has worn me out. When I saw the description of Trichocereus validus being a small clumping columnar with pink flower I gave up and came here. Cactus are my weakness but I do know that from using search engines on subjects that I figure out that they often come up with random nothingness based on opinion and that opinion based information then is copy and pasted over and over.

A friend of mine writes newspaper articles. One article he did was based almost entirely on internet information. I went through and scrutinized his falsely written article and he got upset and found out through university that I was right and the internet was way off.

Coming to this forum I am trying to get away from the confusing world of google and try to get some sense. Much information is written but almost nothing of quality photo identifications and comparison.

If I can take the time I am going to do another post show plants and spines of my confusing collection and why I am confused.

[M S Smith]

Though my Flickr page is not free of errors as I sometimes keep the plants as labeled, even when wrong, it is still worth a review. If you have any questions you know how to reach me.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/msscacti/sets/

Be sure to check out the following link, in particular my post #9.

http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=15744&page=1

I have lots of material here at SAB going back many years and shows my development of ideas, but the stuff in post #9 is pretty much what I think on that particular subject up to today.

~Michael~

[trucha]

Spine length can be almost meaningless. A helpful point to understanding this involves recessive genes. If a person takes a Juuls Giant with short and few spines and crosses it with a pachanot with short spines over half of the F1s come out with spines as long as bridgesii.

Pallarensis at best means that it was at some point grown from Ritter's seeds that were sold by WInter.

THe best advice anyone can offer is to not let your head explode. Just don't take it all too seriously. Its just a game of words. Taxonomy is entirely about creating tools we can use to describe and categorize plants, its not actually about the plants.

[M S Smith]

Sometimes I think that should we have all the dog breeds we have today, but without the provenance, we would regard them all as different species and debate just which ones are intermediaries, that is, after we argued for a while over what name to call them and whose name was most valid. Game or not, it remains entertaining, but yes, certainly nothing to explode over or be mean to others about, especially since none here really have any meaningful effect on the subject outside of this rather limited self-contained forum.

~Michael~

Edited April 19, 2014 by M S Smith

[Bryce]

Sweeping my brains from the floor as I type this. In general I don't think I care about the Taxonomy but I like to take pictures and when I post images I like them to be educational and accurate. For my gardens and pots I could care less. For this reason I hope to at some point be able to photograph and post side by side examples of aerioles, spines, textures, flowers, etc.

Taxonomy for sure will never keep me from enjoying my plants. The trichocereus that are not from the grandiflora or spachiana group allow me to grow in a more moist humid area than I would otherwise. They are also far more pest and disease resistant than other columnar cactus.

I hope to learn at least some basic identification skills for future purposes and photo labeling.

[katu]

You've got some beautiful cacti their mr smith! But on the subject of taxonomy the more I look into this genera the more confused I get . Sometimes I think with all the hybrids and stuff getting around, and as these fine gentlemen pointed out regarding the provenance or lack there of we will end up calling clones simply by what they look like- bridgesii, peru, etc. The dog analogy is a good one, in the sense of. Well is it a poodle X pommeranian. Unless you can say for certain that the two parents are pure breeds it's a mutt that is merely showing the dominant traits of it's parentage. I know quite a few people who have abandoned labelling there plants and grow them for what they are, beautiful cactus. But yes as those who know a lot more than me have stated nothing to let your head explode about. Hey Michael if that comment was aimed at me I apologise to both you and Bryce, I in no way meant to come across as rude or mean. Sorry...

[M S Smith]

No offense taken toward anything you said. I've said the same thing about hybrids and simply calling a plant whatever species it most looks like myself quite a few times. We certainly are in the world of the mutts these days with all the crossing going on and no matter how hard we try to maintain the labels we can never be too sure the source of the plants being crossed took the same care, or that their source did, ad infinitum as far back as you might like to go. And this is only sure to get more and more convoluted as time goes on.

I'm with E.F. Anderson in regarding as species, subspecies, or varities only those plants which have homogenous self replicating natural populations, but even this isn't without it's complications, as trucha and I have addressed elsewhere.

~Michael~

[M S Smith]

ps...and what I was trying to get across with the dog anology is that even the pure breeds are in some ways nothing but mutts. This analogy is mostly applicable to those plants regarded as T. pachanoi. If there were no human intervention with the Trichocereus (which goes back centuries - much longer than with the modern dog) then the picture would be a lot clearer. But then again it would be a lot more boring.

~Michael~

[katu]

Michael I agree with you all points mate, we are indeed in the world of mutts nowadays as you put it and yes it's only going to get more confusing as time goes on. And yes regarding hybrids unless the person producing the said X takes a lot of care in isolating the plants from other plants flowering who knows what it is? I too agreed with Edward F Anderson regarding natural populations(great book), but even then, especially with the species which have a history of ethno botanical use, who's to say if it is a "natural" population or was cultivated by an ancient long lost peoples, chavin?? Is this what you mean regarding a "pure breed" being a mutt? Thanks.

P.S. off topic, thank you for your booklet on the takeaway tek which I purchased through SAB, this has enabled a layman such as myself to start raising my own plants from seed. Very rewarding!