Will the real short spined peruvianus please stand up?

[bit]

Interested to hear views on this guy - does peruvian torch really exist as a separate sub sp?

Edited February 6, 2007 by bit

[Ace]

Bit, once again, you have shown us a beautiful specimen. I think it looks a lot like a standard pedro, but M S Smith would be the bloke to chat to about the variants. Either way, you have got a ripper of a collection and its great to see some beautiful pics like these!

[bit]

Bit, once again, you have shown us a beautiful specimen. I think it looks a lot like a standard pedro, but M S Smith would be the bloke to chat to about the variants. Either way, you have got a ripper of a collection and its great to see some beautiful pics like these!

Thanks a lot ace What can I say.. I'm addicted to these things ... they truly seem to have a presence that I don't feel with any other plants! I tend to agree that from the pics it does look like T.pach, but when seen in person (so to speak) it's very different - the colour is a darker green, and the spine are significantly longer... I hope with the title MS Smith will poke his nose in here

[strangebrew]

Nice plant.

It's the closest thing I think I've seen to the common 'pachanoi' to come out of NZ so far, so I'll just guess it was grown from X'd seed, maybe even labelled as pachanoi, obtained from another country.

Edited February 6, 2007 by strangebrew

[M S Smith]

Bit, your plants are simply T. pachanoi in my estimate. I've made my arguments in a number of other threads why I think this the case. I could point them out if you need. Nice plants by the way.

Below is the so-called "short spined T. peruvianus." This name appear to be completely of my own doing many many years ago when it was sent to me simply as a “T. peruvianus” and I added the "short spined" moniker to differentiate it from the common long spined form of T. peruvianus that I have more recently suspected as in fact T. cuzcoensis, though this is not without question itself. Nor should the name "T. peruvianus" be without question regarding this plant. This original "short spined T. peruvianus" is by my current estimate simply a distinct form of the variable T. pachanoi of Ecuador and Peru, but differs in a small number of ways, particularly in its regular formation of three spines per areole, often dropping to one, and this one with age being able to growth to upwards of 5cm.. With this in mind any plant being called the “short spined T. peruvianus” should be only this particular and original clone that I applied the moniker to, but really this name should be dropped all together.

The “short spined T. peruvianus” appears to be identical to the Berkeley Botanical Garden Trichocereus sp. Peru #64.0762 which was collected by P. Hutchinson and J.K. Wright at the Canyon Rio Maranon above Chagual, Huamachuco Province, Peru. Many of the “true” T. pachanoi of Ecuador and Peru (not the so-called "Backeberg clone) can be quite variable dependent upon genetics and breeding in different ranges. The true T. pachanoi are commonly called “short spined T. peruvianus” due to the fact that many consider the so-called “Backeberg clone” the standard T. pachanoi and recognize that the “true” T. pachanoi of Ecuador and Peru don’t look like this clone, but more like the “short spined” plant, therefore many mistakenly call the true T. pachanoi “short spined T. peruvianus.” I should note again that the “short spined T. peruvianus” is in fact a T. pachanoi and not a T. peruvianus, but one that is somewhat distinct from most of the other T. pachanoi of Ecuador and Peru.

“Short spined T. peruvianus”:

“True” T. pachanoi of Ecuador and Peru:

~Michael~

[M S Smith]

Here's the "true" T. pachanoi common to Ecuador and Peru.

Here's the so-called "Backeberg clone" which I suspect is less of a relative to the "true" T. pachanoi than possibly to T. bridgesii of Bolivia.

Here's another of the "short spined T. peruvianus".

~Michael~

[gerbil]

WOW I appreciate you all sharing your photos and thoughts, this is excellent, thanks bit, mss etc

Overly motivating, I just hope some of my columnar collection will flower within the next few years so it can be seeded, nice to know there will be great genetics out there to cross with. It's been a frustrating patient wait over the years for those little hairs to appear hehe

Love the 'short spine t. peru' mss, looks almost juuls like with the fatness, lovely

Edited February 6, 2007 by gerbil

[bit]

Thanks Michael and others. Your input is interesting and thought provoking as always. The next couple of years I guess will tell me more about my plant as it matures.

I note that it's certainly different to the 'sstp' closeups posted, as it has 5 spines which start of yellow brown and turn white, whereas the 3-spined ones seem to stay brown/black.

[strangebrew]

Do your plants receive sunlight all year round bit? You should get flowers if they do. It will be interesting to see it's flowers differ at all from the common plant.

The thing that looks a bit different to me when compared to the common 'pachanoi' is that yours looks to have a very flat profile with the areoles facing straight out at 90 degrees all the way up the main stem. I've also never seen spines of that length near the top of a plant.

[bit]

Do your plants receive sunlight all year round bit? You should get flowers if they do. It will be interesting to see it's flowers differ at all from the common plant.

The thing that looks a bit different to me when compared to the common 'pachanoi' is that yours looks to have a very flat profile with the areoles facing straight out at 90 degrees all the way up the main stem. I've also never seen spines of that length near the top of a plant.

Yes they do recieve sunlight all year round My guess is that this plant could be a couple of years from flowering at least though, it was only rooted last autum, and you can see the new growth

Next time I'm a bit bored I may do some more photography on the differences between my trichs.

[hebrew]

its interesting that behind the true t pachanoi from peru the one with the lady in the red jumper thing is a bottlebrush plant.

slightly off topic but interesting to see.