ID request - Trichocereus - possibly chilensis?

[zed240]

Hi All,

hoping for an ID on this bad boy I very recently acquired. It is in a pot that is at least 30cm in diameter.

Was apparently rescued from a garden where it was completely covered by some kind of ground cover. It looks like it hasn't grown in a while and needs lots of love to hopefully regain some glory and attractiveness. There is also a little bit of damage to the top but I'm not sure if it's damaged the apical meristem, I guess I will find out if it keeps growing or it it pups.

So - what do YOU think it is?

The below pic was taken when I had sprayed water all over it to see if the spines changed colour when wet.

[Evil Genius]

Yeah, thinking chilensis too. Wouldnt know of any alternatives that come close. Needs a lot of fertilizers but it will be a kickass cactus some day!

[mutant]

hmmm not really sure.. pretty fatty... could it be some long spined version of taquimbalesis or what?

[Englebert Yar'Blocks]

That first picture makes me think Browningia. Which led me to getting well confused looking at T. chilensis and Browningias. Every time I think I have determined a distinguishing feature, I find the same feature on the other sort.

[Micromegas]

Hi Zed, check out this plant. It was sourced in SA. I call it Trichocereus "Spine Master" because it has 8-inch spines or longer. It looks a dead ringer for your beat up specimen if you look at the spination and wavy rib pattern. When heathly it grows tall and fat, mine is around 5ft.

Did this plant come from a garden in the southern suburbs of adelaide? I may know the garden. I'm guessing here because it had some unusual plants but buried in grass and uncared for. Mine did not come from there though. Yours is the first I have seen that looks similar and i think quite possibly the same clone. It's a good find. My only concern is if it did not come rooted, it may be reluctant to grow roots.

It is definitely not what i call T.chilensis/chiloensis so i called it Spine Master lol!

Edit: here he is from above, hence the name.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Micromegas

[mutant]

Hey since I got into reading and measuring spine lengths yesterday

could you tell spine lengths?

Zed, am I wrong, or there are swollen bases in that spines?

I found a max length of 8 cm for taquimbalensis and I still am inclined to taq

Micromegas, why isn't your specimen Chilensis? For one, older spines are white and new spines seem right too

Really cant find many similarities between the two tbh

[Evil Genius]

Micromegas, yours is definitely Chilensis. And this time, I mean it. This just can´t be anything else. The other one has rounded spine bases and the taquimbalensis rib shape, so I was probably wrong when I first saw it, but this one is a Chilensis. They are the only ones that become such monsters.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Evil Genius

[Micromegas]

Haha yes EG I believe you do mean it! And on reflection i believe you are correct.

I do still think it looks like zed's plant mutant but i'm a definite hack and obviously don't spend much time on it.

So this is also chilensis? The person who gave it to me had a large one labelled as such (chiloensis actually) so I just carried on thinking that way; it is distinctly different however there are definitely similarities. It also grows quite large but many more columns that are thinner, and it's slow.

Are chilensis and chiloensis synonyms?

[zed240]

Hey MM,

That spine master sure is a nice plant. It reminds me of a plant I have that I call a pasacana, (which is probably something else along the lines of a hybrid chilensis. I should put up a pic with fresh growth so people can tell me)

Your other plant in post #8 is cuper cool too. I especially like the ominous shadow of a man behind it in this pic.

I think this plant of mine maybe has fatter spine bases and more curved, bendy looking spines although it's hard to tell with the poor condition mine is in.

This plant came from a guy on gumtree. His story was he used to grow plants and recently has gotten into finding/hunting for cactus in peoples gardens as well as inheriting part of a friends collection and he's beeen selling the cuts. He's from around the seacombe gardens area and I think he finds them on his bike and on foot, so I'd say it was somewhere in a southern suburbs garden.
He did say this plant has roots as I asked him a couple of times pretty explicitly but I'm yet to pull it out, check and repot it. I should try and get a hand to do it before it's completely winter here.
I also wouldn't be suprised if it has no roots.

Mutant - The longest of the [EDIT] central [END EDIT] spines is 13cm. And yes, definitely swollen bases. I'll add a couple of pics that are the best I can take at night and we're generally out of daylight when I get home from work these days.



And EG - Does that mean you actually think my plant might really be a taquimbalensis rather than a chilensis?

Oh, and from other threads and what I've read I think chilensis and chiloensis are synonymous, but I could definitely be wrong on that.

Edited April 13, 2015 by zed240

[Evil Genius]

Hi Zed, do you mean your Fattie that was labeled PASACANA? The flowers looked very much like Chilensis but can you post it again? Like, the whole plant including the flower?

[mutant]

zed> Well I am no expert but I do find taquimbalensis wilka the best looking trichocereus and tend to notice its areoles and spines a lot... the most wild spination of the cluster by far! And after the areole close up IMO this is exactly what this is : a taquimbalensis wilkae which is either very beaten up or very dirty, or stale for a long time or even dead. What do you mean you dont know if its got roots?

in any case, 13 cm is pretty nice, try to get it growing, you might own the taquimbalensis clone with the longest spines

miicrom>

yep chiloensis =chilensis

a book I trust and like a lot says there are at least 3 distinct vars of chilensis

since 8 inches are 20 cm, it might be narrowed down.

for what its worth this is my specimen and what most specimens offered for sale look like IMO

and with wet spines

Edited April 13, 2015 by mutant

[zed240]

Hi Zed, do you mean your Fattie that was labeled PASACANA? The flowers looked very much like Chilensis but can you post it again? Like, the whole plant including the flower?

Hi EG, yes, that was the one I as referring to. I have some pics of it flowering but they were taken back in late 2014. Since then it has put on a whole heap of fresh growth and shot out three pups! A surprising amount of growth actually, I think it likes it's new home.

I will find some pics and add them.

zed> What do you mean you dont know if its got roots?

I haven't personally seen any roots on this plant as I didn't pot it up. And I haven't had it long enough to see it grow. So until I personally remove it from the pot and check for roots I really can't say with any surity whther it has or hasn't got any at the moment.

The seller told me it had roots when I asked him but he was sketchy enough, (in my mind), to have said that regardless as he wanted me to buy his stuff from him.

[zed240]

Did this plant come from a garden in the southern suburbs of adelaide? I may know the garden. I'm guessing here because it had some unusual plants but buried in grass and uncared for.

Like I said above, yes, it appears to have come from a garden in that area. He also had 3 terscheckii pups taken from a garden in the area that were each about 60cm X 30cm. Not rooted and very, very scarred. He just wanted WAY too much for them. $200 each!!!

Pics of his terscheckii pup that was in the best condition of them all, (and wasn't for sale)

And EG, here are some more pics of my "pasacana" which has to be something else like a chilensis or a hybrid terscheckii/chilensis I think. Thoughts?

Flower pics are about October 2014. Pics of new fresh growth are taken early March 2015. He is a bit over 3 feet from the ground to the top now. Has 3 pups now which have formed over the last 3 months too.

[Micromegas]

This thread turned out to be quite interesting I definitely learned something.

Thanks for the info mutant, would you mind sharing the name of the book?

Interesting story about the guy hunting down cactus zed, sounds familiar (once upon a time a least, and not on foot lol!).

So yeah I also have something I have been calling pasacana that I always thought wasn't really, and now I also suspect it to be a hybrid of chilensis based on this thread. It looks similar to yours but maybe not identical. It grows a lot faster than the two I posted above and your looks like it does as well - hybrid vigour?

That is a really nice plant you have there we should arrange a date for them and see if they copulate productively to settle the argument!

[mutant]

Hmmm

Zeds "pasacana" seems like and intermediate between "validus" (most spines downward) and terscheckii, given "validus" seems to exist in oz. But the almost tuberculate , wavy rib appearance perhaps also indicates chilensis (?)

MM "pasacana" seems more like a pasacana , seeing how it also lacks the tubercled pheno. Just my thought though

the book is

"500 cacti: species and varieties in cultivation" (preston)

[Evil Genius]

Zed, the plant is one of the countless types of Chilensis. There really are no other options and the flower looks right too. Btw, amazing plants involved in this thread! I love this Chilensis-Pasacana! :D bye EG

[zed240]

Thanks so much to everyone for your input. I really appreciate it!

So what do you feel the OP plant is EG? Do you think it may be a taquimbalensis or do you feel that one is chilensis also?

That is a really nice plant you have there we should arrange a date for them and see if they copulate productively to settle the argument!

This sounds like a wonderful idea MM.

This plant, (my "pasacana"), seems to flower early for me, started in September 2014 so I had no other pollen at the time. I had a couple of varieties sent to me from the US but they didn't take.

I now have a pretty big cache of fresh collected pollen from a variety of my plants which has been stored in the freezer. If it pops early again this year I will try and pollinate it again.

[paradox]

sery similar plant to one i got from lester myers many years ago..

see this thread from 2007: http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16070&hl=chilensis#entry167483

ignore the knuthianus at the top of my first post, it's the second plant i have pictured in post #1 & also have pictures in post #16

Edited April 15, 2015 by paradox

[Evil Genius]

Hey Zed, still think that the first plant in this thread is Trichocereus Chilensis. Trichocereus Taquimbalensis can be pretty pale but the skin color the plant in the first post in here has is more typical of Chilensis. That´s why I felt like that Philocacti´s plant is Chilensis too. It just had that typical skin and spine color. Another reason I think the plant in the first pic is a Chilensis is because it has this rounded rib shape that is so typical for Chilensis. Taquimbalensis has some prerry straight ribs, though there are types that look a little more chaotic.

Paradox. About your thread. The plant in the first post is definitely a Knuthianus. Beyond a doubt. Second plant, I know why you think it´s similar and it´s potentially really a type that is somewhat related to Knuthianus. But I still see a lot of Chilensis in the plant and that´s what I think it is and my guess is that the collectors ID´d that plant (which is really similar to Knuthianus) as Trichocereus Knuthianus based on its similarity to that species. But yeah, still think that´s a Chilensis. I mean, all those plants are really difficult to ID as adult plants in the field, because they look so unlike their juvenile form. But both do not share the same habitats and I just think they evolved similarly at two different places because that´s in their genes.

[zed240]

sery similar plant to one i got from lester myers many years ago..

see this thread from 2007: http://www.shaman-australis.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=16070&hl=chilensis#entry167483

ignore the knuthianus at the top of my first post, it's the second plant i have pictured in post #1 & also have pictures in post #16

Do you mean you think it looks similar to my OP plant, my "pasacana" or one of Micromegas' plants?

Apart from passing similarities I think it looks quite different to both of mine TBH..... Would still very happily have it in my collection though!

[mutant]

EG you have officially chaotized the thread, by changing your mind for the OP

I find it funny this is about IDing a cactus in bad shape which we are not sure if its still alive

[Evil Genius]

Yeah let´s burn this thread and make a new one.

[Berengar]

Pretty sure the plant in the OP is Eulychnia acida!

[paradox]

Paradox. About your thread. The plant in the first post is definitely a Knuthianus. Beyond a doubt. Second plant, I know why you think it´s similar and it´s potentially really a type that is somewhat related to Knuthianus.

yeah i know EG, i thought it was similar in a sense, at the time, but that was nearly 10 years ago when i started that thread haha. i just thought i'd post that thread as it has discussion of the apparent chilensis ID that has been brought up in this thread.

i'm not sure exactly what i said in that thread as i haven't read it again but i'd bet a large amount of it will probably be out dated, i just definitely think the plant i'm referring to in that thread is the same as micromegas' & probably the same asthe one in mutants pic too..

[Micromegas]

Ok so I propose we all attempt to grow Tristerix aphyllus on all the plants we have that we believe to be Chilensis, that should solve the debate! Anyone have any seeds?!

Then we would only need to separate them from Eulychnia acida as berengar suggests, lol!

Again, cool thread.

We'll set up a romantic date for those two guys this season zed i should be around the garden more by then, i missed all the flowers the last few years.

[Evil Genius]

I do have a couple seeds but they are a little older an I dont know if they will germinate. But happy to send them to someone. Eulychnia acida has a different flower, so I am pretty sure that we can rule that one out. But nothing is sure in this thread. :D