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Ambient

Peru or Cuzco? & maybe short spined peru or other?

Question

The first cacti was sold to me as a Peruvians a few years ago, but I've had a couple of friends suggest that it might be a cuzco. I can see why they might think this and hoped I would be able to get a general consensus from you guys?

 

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The second cacti has been suggested to be a short spined peru when I first received it as a small cutting many years ago, I was hoping for a more definite ID now it's a displaying some mature growth.

 

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Thanks in advance :)

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Edited by Ambient

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Very nice plants!

The first one is especially nice! :) 

To my untrained eye they both look peru.

I though knuth had older spines that turned grey with swollen bases.

And the second could be a pach or maybe some sort of pach/peru intermediate, it's just the areoles look a little big to me for it to be a straight pach.

I'm certainly open to the idea of being wrong. As godless said, I'm definitely no expert.

Evil genius is the guru on this sort of thing so if he see this I'm sure you'll get an answer. 

Happy gardening! :) 

Edited by Psyentist
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Cheers guys, I also posted these on a trichocereus FB group and was also suggested Knuthianus for the first so I think you're right on that as it seems to be the general consensis

 

I've had a few different suggestions for the second one, pachanoi, pachanoi x peru and T. santaensis. I'm leaing towards a peru cross or T. santaensis.

 

 

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once you start trying to ID crosses with no parentage info its largely guess work, IMO. you'll never get a solid %100 answer. and even if you get a bridge x pach x peru answer, (just an example) then which pach? which bridge? which peru?

its tricky business.

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once you start trying to ID crosses with no parentage info its largely guess work, IMO. you'll never get a solid %100 answer. and even if you get a bridge x pach x peru answer, (just an example) then which pach? which bridge? which peru?

its tricky business.

 

haha pretty much, I feel like the more I know about cactus ID, the more I realise how much I don't know. Hopefully Patrick's new book will help me out a little once it arrives :)

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I see you're now advertising the first plant for sale as "peruvianus X knuthianus" on Gumtree and here. Have you found out that was actually the exact cross of this plant, or did you just decide to plonk that name on it for the ads? 

 

I mean, obviously you can do whatever you like, but to me it seems disingenuous to put the details of a hybrid on the plant when you don't know that's actually what it is. 

 

Why not sell it as "trichocereus sp." or trichocereus peruvianus since that's what you got it labelled as, you can always put a question mark after the name, like "trichocereus peruvianus ??", or even something like "Trichocereus aff. peruvianus", with the "aff." meaning it's something close to that family but maybe not an exact representation of peruvianus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_affinis

 

Just my thoughts, you probably know tricho people like labels, and it almost seems mean to make up a hybrid label. 

 

Having said all that, I really think it's a great looking plant and if you were selling smaller cuttings to post I'd take one. 

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I think for some of us heathens who are not up to scratch with botanical nomenclature its considered as a "parental descriptive" term as well as a resulting cross of two specifically known mother plants, be that considered right or wrong.  I don't think there is any intent to bamboozle.  

Atleast I didn't consider it at all in the way you're presenting when I was chatting with ambient about it next to the plant the other day, intent perceived in the eye of the beholder and all that.  On the FB page EG was confident of knuthianus heritage which I think Ambient is going off.  I'm sure he would be honest and upfront upon buyer enquiry.

In saying this I can see what you're trying to do comes from a good place and it is informative and I learned something which is always cool!  I just wanna clear his name a little :wink: 

 

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I have to disagree that saying "peruvianus X knuthianus" with no qualifier is really accepted as being a way to describe how a plant looks with no actual intention to convey the parentage. If you're trying to say the plant looks similar to another species but isn't quite right, that's what the "aff." is supposed to do. :wink: Or of course just say something like "looks like a peru X knuth to me", which implies it's not known and an opinion. 

I saw the discussions about it's parentage, and I agreed with other commenters (in my mind) at the time, that it has a strong knuthianus vibe, but not as many of the cuzco-like features a full on knuthianus would show. So it is an interesting one. 

 

I do get how it may come across as me having a go at Ambient, that's not really the case as it's hard to convey the nuances of in-person speech and inflection in text. 

 

And it really is a very nice plant, I just don't think it's quite right to say it's a particular hybrid. So hopefully no one's been insulted and maybe even learned some stuff too. :)

 

Happy cactusing!

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zed what makes you say "not as many of the cuzco-like features" ?

 

What other features would you say identify a cuzco as opposed to what we see here?

My understanding is cuzco and knuth are basically the same except the Knuth is much more knobbier, if you will. The spines turning white as they age scream cuzco to me, however I guess this is also a trait for knuth.

I can't see if the spines become bulbous at the base further down as OP has not included any photos of the older spines close up.

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From what I can see it doesn't appear to have as thick or robust spines as cuzco/knuth usually has.

 

The centrals seem shorter, (which I know can be environmental), and the swollen spine bases appear to be absent from what I can see in these pics. You can zoom in on the pics a bit as they're a good size, but yes, clearer pics of the older growth would be good to see.

 

It also doesn't look like it gets the usual double long centrals (one pointing up and one pointing down), that often appear on cuzco and knuthianus.

 

Also the thin, needle like appearance and colour of the spines, with coloured spines appearing down on older growth too, remind me less of pure cuzco/knuth types.

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I see you're now advertising the first plant for sale as "peruvianus X knuthianus" on Gumtree and here. Have you found out that was actually the exact cross of this plant, or did you just decide to plonk that name on it for the ads? 

 

I mean, obviously you can do whatever you like, but to me it seems disingenuous to put the details of a hybrid on the plant when you don't know that's actually what it is. 

 

Why not sell it as "trichocereus sp." or trichocereus peruvianus since that's what you got it labelled as, you can always put a question mark after the name, like "trichocereus peruvianus ??", or even something like "Trichocereus aff. peruvianus", with the "aff." meaning it's something close to that family but maybe not an exact representation of peruvianus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_affinis

 

Just my thoughts, you probably know tricho people like labels, and it almost seems mean to make up a hybrid label. 

 

Having said all that, I really think it's a great looking plant and if you were selling smaller cuttings to post I'd take one. 

 

Cheers for the heads up man, I wasn't aware of the species affinis nomenclature and as Mapacho suggested was just using it as a best fit naming. I can see the problem it may have caused, fortunately in this case I already knew the guy who bought the cutting from me and was able chat to him about the ID being a "as best as we can tell" type ID and not an official cross. I'll keep aff. in mind for future ID :)

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