other potential problems in cactus identification and comparisons

[trucha]

....especially when the the variability of climate,soil composition,etc. take hold.

For instance,I have an RS0004 that was gifted to me.When it arrived it was a typical mac clone,after a year in my soil mix and climate it was a different plant. 1'' spines were now 3'',slender ribs were now swollen,epidermis was now totally glaucus.

I've had this happen to many plants,which leads me to my primary question.

How drastically can soil composition alone alter the appearance(identification) of these plants?

[....]

I use a soil very high in dolomite,gypsum,compost,and pyroclay.Also alot of granite for the special ones.

Since I've been using this mix I've observed that spine length increases by 100 to 200%.I'm talking bridgesii var.brevispinus with 4 ''spines,short spine variants becoming long spined.

Also,plants shapeshifting,becoming variegated,turning monstrose,monstrose going crest,etc.

I feel blessed with all of this weirdness going on with my plants,but it makes me wonder if all of this can be attributed to soil alone,and if so, how accurate can observable I.D.'s be outside species alone?

Now couple this with a 100 growers and 100 different soils and climates,overwhelming to say the least.

Ironically,I have one plant that has remained true in form and habit.

Its a peruvianus/macrogonus plucked from the hill tops near Oroyo Peru,its a beauty of a plant.

The simple answer is "Dramatically"

Michael's really nice name game illustrates only one of the problems in identifying cacti based on simple morphology. Part of his beautiful plants involves having really nice conditions and being younger growth but part is their obviously nice mix.

The question that was raised [offlist] as how nutrients and mineralization can influence spination is a really interesting one since the obvious answer is hugely.

Lots of native soils have very little organics and lots of clays or rock or in some cases are seriously mineralized.

A friend visiting Matucana, and spending some time with the nice people who traditionally harvest there, told me the soil there was intensely mineralized and really high in copper and other minerals - so high that nice copper crystals could be readily plucked from the surface of the soil. He told me the primary organics that any of the cacti would get was as the occasional individual that would be lucky enough to have some animal shit occasionally tossed in their direction during the course of farming activities (the cactus are often grown in and around cultivated areas that are irrigated regularly)

I saw something similar in Oz when friends took me to visit some wild occurrences of Acacia obusifolia. They seemed to grow out of pure gravel or sand mixes with no apparent organics except what their roots would encounter when tapping into the invariably nearby watercourses. Planting a maidenii (recovered from Bob Wallace's after someone threw it under some shrubbery apparently only wanting the pot it was in) into really crappy intensely rocky soil here above a creek is creating a far more healthy plant than anything I ever grew in good soil. It seemed to die for more than a year but was instead focusing on getting its roots into the creek bed)

Over the years my cactus blends have steadily grow lower in organics and higher in rocky mixtures incorporating lesser amounts of some type of clays such as decomposed granite and sometimes dolomitic materials.

As also was brought up in that same question nutrients are not alone in potential impact.

Cactus grown under lush pampered conditions in nice soil mixes often do not resemble what they would look like in the wild or in a botanical museum or even if grown in a nice cactus bed outdoors in a warmer climate. Sometimes this means the formation of more spines not less. Perhaps to discourage animals that are looking for more luscious treat?

It seems to vary by species though as lush conditions produce more spines in some and less in others. It would be interesting to do a study on this involveing multiple species and see how this correlates with their local conditions back home.

Part of this is water availability but soil and nutrients can impact this greatly. A fertilized plant can often barely resemble an unfertilized plant. TRue not just of cacti but of many succulents (check out the Some other Succulents pdf at www.troutsnotes.com and compare a Sceletium that was fertilized with one that was not for a nie example.)

Acid soils versus alkaline soils versus highly mineralized soils can vastly impact appearance as anyone moving and transplanting their cacti into diffferent conditions can attest. Presence of clays, decomposed granite and volcanics also can have visible impact on plants but there seems no consistent response across multiple species. Perhaps this reflects where they are native? Lophos frequently won't flower unless adequate calcium is present but other species like bridgesii don't fare as well in soil rich in calcium as when it is not.

Soil pH is also an important thing to keep aware of as different minerals have different bioavailability at different pH levels. Even in seriously ultramafic soils iron and other minerals are not available when the pH is alkaline but in acidic soils many metal ions become more available even when the actual concentrations of those metals are much lower than in the aforementioned soils.

Cactus in richer or commercial potting blends frequently diverge greatly from what one might see if they were potted in a more gravelly and low organics mix.

Watering is another factor that does not have homogenous results. If I pump pachanoi with water they grow almost like watermelons. If I try this with bridgesii they tend to rot or just sit there. If I water them sparingly or not at all, the bridgesii monstrose I have can grow so fast as to make me wonder how they are doing it. Two years ago I completely stopped deliberately trying to propagate them as I found I had far more growth when I just left them alone and unmolested.

Different people may have different results though as none of these factors are something the plants experience independently of other factors. Which goes back to the "100 growers and 100 different soils and climates" thought...

Degree of sun can be a huge factor also. I have a bridgesii obtained from the defunct Cactus Gems mislabelled as T. hertzogianus that had only a few weak thin spines when first encountered but grew many stout long golden spines when moved into full sun. It was hard to believe it was actually the same plants within its first year in the sun.

Some of the fat pachanoids appear to require a nurse plant (not true shade but bright filtered light) to reach their fat potential but other species appear to require more sun and just eat it up.

The really fat almost spineless thing at Berkeley was found originally growing in a shaded canyon under trees above flowing water. A spot also that might be suspected of having richer than normal soil?

Mimicking native conditions seems a logical approach to mimicking a natural appearance.

According to photos shared with me and comments made by a friend who was there, even those fat Matucanas appear to reach their maximum girth only when starting out with some protective cover from grasses, shrubs and small plants and when reaching into the sun they stay fat and chunky while those starting in full sun are more slender and not as robust. In other species shading causes skinny elongated growth and a clublike appearance when they reach the sun.

This love of sun for best growth is true for many plants not just cacti. A Banisteriopsis that can grow in full sun gets leaves much larger than those grown in shade. They won't typically tolerate this as a starting point. The best and happiest ones I grew in Texas started in a shady spot under Maclura pommifera and once out into the sun got huge and exploded far more vigorously than the shaded parts.

It would be really interesting to see someone undertake a rigorous study of environmental and assorted growth factors of multiple trich species to determine how each responds. Again though with an eye for what the cactus being studied would encounter back home being an important consideration.

A lot of people have trouble with Lophocereus schottii monstrose not growing vigorusly or looking scarred due to not realizing it naturally grows in ravines filled with accumulated leaf litter detritus and grows best with a bit more moisture and richer soil and bright filtered light or otherwise limited periods of sun than one would expect from a Baja plant.

In the trich species that can form golden spines the richer the soil the more yellow seems to appear but I only toss that out as an observation in hopes this picture can be better elucidated once people start studying it. Lots of sun and water seem to help their formation too but again this is something in need of an in-depth study rather than a preliminary conclusion by me.

Environmental, soil type and nutritional impacts on morphology in cacti might make for an interesting dissertation project for any botanical grad students out there?

Edited August 31, 2007 by trucha

[Evil Genius]

Hi Trucha, the more experienced i get, the less nutrients my soil contains. Everytime i used soil that was high in nutrients, i received many cases of black rot and other diseases. I assume its the same with humans. The more nutrients they get, the more likely they get cancer. Many weird looking plants that are getting sold as rarities at ebay, are in reality just sick plants that look diffrent because they are Ill. bye Eg

Edited August 31, 2007 by Evil Genius

[trucha]

I could not agree more. Inorganics rock.

[Evil Genius]

Hi Trucha, in regard to this i wonder about ODD Growth. This week i received another Odd Growth Pachanoi and i dont know what to think about it. Do you think it´s some kind of permanent mutation? Despite the odd growth, the plants look very healthy. It almost looks like benign tumors. bye Eg

[Osprey]

very interesting.

I need to switch to something more mineral and less nutritious.

my plants are becoming bloated overfed American pet cacti.

I want them to look like those habitat pictures.

Lean and mean

if you look at Knizes site, it looks like the plants are just stuck in sand.

Ther's some stuff available locally called "buckshot' that's used to fill septic sand filters.Basically washed pebbles the size of buckshot.

Also coarse washed sand for the same purpose.

Maybe they would take the place of expensive pumice

Since I want to fill raised beds,I'm mostly looking for stuff sold by the yard.

I have always used composted cow manure and compost from the recycling facility along with topsoil,but maybe that's too rich.

what would be a good minerally planting bed mix?

i don't care if they grow slower,I think they would be stronger plants that way.

[spunwhirllin]

It seems we need to some comparisons in the culture of these plants.

With a few photos I can demonstrate the obvious morphological differences within the same plant.I have a few plants that maintain the original characteristics,while new pups that have matured under my care show startling variability.

I'll see if I can post a few photos.

Indicators for several of the coveted species seems to be fairly straight forward once you build a familiarity with the genus and accept the designations assigned to each.

My four year old son can pick out a macrogonus from bridgesii based on observable differences,once those differences are defined,I guess thats the trick.Yep,starting him off young.

What becomes complex is keeping up with all the cultivars,and hybrids out there.The only thing you can be sure of is what the tag states,and thats even risky.You certainly cant rely on physical descriptions anymore.

It must be the complexity that makes it so interesting,or annoying.

Osprey,

I've had good luck with crushed granite,consisting mostly of quartz and calcites,its a good source of minerals.Also crushed 1/4'' minus rock,which is sold by the yard.

There might not be a need to eliminate the organics all together if you just increase the mineral content.

[M S Smith]

I grow in my own yards loam soil...otherwise known as brown dirt. I might mix in some pre-fertilized peat based flower mix, but never more than 1/4. The plants in Peru seem to grow in loam so what they hay. Since switching to loam about 2 years ago the plants grow better than ever and are much healthier. The loam also seems to be doing the trick in limiting the negative effects of root mealies and root rot under wet conditions. MSS

ps - here's something I wrote at the Nook today:

Of course there is lots of confusion on the subject of T. peruvianus, as my photo site points out, but it should clearly be noted that just because my plants are labeled as "T. peruvianus" doesn't mean they are, but rather I tend to keep them under the names they had when they came to me, even if incorrect, unless of course the mislabel is particularly glaring. kt does the same within his publications and that is what that silly Sacred Cactus ebay seller fellow can't seem to fathom. So while that guy says "this is such a species and this is not", while being oblivious to the variability, kt and I like to put forward the variability and discuss what might be more represented and what might best fit the descriptions in the original literature.

It is best to look at these plants as composing a number of different complexes (i.e. T. pachanoi, T. peruvianus, T. bridgesii, T. cuzcoensis, T. chiloensis, T. terscheckii, T. tacaquerensis, T. atacamensis, T. scopulicola, etc.), and that within these numerous broad complexes there exists degrees of natural genetic and environmental variables that effect growth habit. There also are degrees of intergrading between these "species"; for example, T. pachanoi and T. peruvianus seem to have a high degree of intermixing that produces “intermediaries.” I would refrain from calling these intermediaries "hybrids" simply for the fact that in most cases what we might consider the parents to such "hybrids" are already intermediaries’ themselves. So you have hybrid on hybrid on hybrid going back probably to the time that mankind showed an interest in these plants and carried them from one location to the next, particularly in regard to T. pachanoi and T. peruvianus.

I might even go so far as to suggest that the T. pachanoi of Ecuador and Peru is a “cultivar” itself and not a “species” in the classic sense at all. I do though think the fat blue plants of Matucana, Peru, such as the IcarosDNA plant, is a species, being T. peruvianus and that even it has its own natural variability. And as I’ve said before, I think there are lots of interesting plants that are along the lines of intermediaries between the T. pachanoi plants of Ecuador and Peru and the T. peruvianus plants from central Peru. Many of these I think are commonly seen as being “T. macrogonus” (though I find that designation invalid). And this is removing that fact that both T. pachanoi and T. peruvianus in reality appear to be the same species according to flower characteristics (this even though kt has noted the floral tubes length differences).

Britton & Rose seemed to not even be aware of the natural range of T. pachanoi because it had such a wide presence throughout the Andes. Isolation is the key to maintaining, and further diversifying, "pure species" among plants that can so easily interbreed. So if you start moving plants around, as no doubt has happened for probably at least a couple thousand years, you tend to "pollute" the pure species. And once polluted the homogenous growth morphology tends to abate and variation increase. So saying this one plant is representational of exactly what T. peruvianus is is foolish.

~Michael~

[trucha]

From what my friend told me about the Matucana area it is almost pure rock and gravel with lots of mineralization rather than loamy except for th worked garden areas where rotted vegetation and animal manure is added. Some plants like pasacana grow in rocky soil with more loam in some areas and intensely high salinity in others (some of the photos I've seen this year were insane - I am attempting to get copies and will post them here)

Its important to keep in mind that loam is not a thing but rather a bunch of things chacacterized by fine particle sizes.

There are sandy loams, silty loams and clayey loams which are not interchangeable.

Bridgesii is a rocky, clayey loam lover in the wild from what I have heard (but not witnessed in person)

Some plants in Bolivia appear to live in talus which is mainly semidecomposed rock rubble.

A study of wild soil types and their composition would be as valuable as a study of response to container grown soil mixes.

I started avoiding peat entirely some years ago and have never looked back. For those plants that like such stuff coir is OK but should not be more than 10% of the mix or its gets weird when it dried out.

I also use no added ferts ever anymore although did use "AG response" lightly as a topical spray this year during the start of the flowering period.

I now use no more than 10% mixed organics, usually this is vegetable compost and no animal products, and most of it being a mixture of pumice and crushed lava rock (50-70% depending on the plants) The rest is dolomitic rock and decomposed granite sand with some crushed metamoprhic/serpentine road base. Sometimes I get in a hurry and use some premixed stuff for the compost but still try to avoid avoid anything with peat and opt for blends of forest humus, coir and seaweed composts. Earthworm castings seem ok if they are there but really low in total. If I can't avoid bat guano in a mix I flush it profusely with water repeatedly after planting to try and wash out as many nutrients as possible.

The plants really seem to appreciate it but I'll report back next year as I am just getting going again with gardening (I created a really nice sized large bed with deep pits of lava rock overlaid with cactus mix) after having too much other things on my plate the last few years and despite having one nice bed it was fairly small (6 feet by 8 feet) so I was largely just sticking plants into the ground in three different areas into unammended soil so I could stop having a container garden.

I live in a redwood temperate rain forest which is not exactly cactus country. I got rid of anything that was not wet tolerant before moving but have had few losses except for last winter when some of the pachanois bit it during extreme freezing weather. The native soil here is mostly fractured rock with lots of fine particulates due to it being upthrusted fault country still in the process of rising. It has almost no organics except in the forest where detritus can accumulate. Obviously I choose the open zones for cacti as the forest provides no sun. ITs been a tricky challenge.

Abandoning mixed things things including bat guano and other hot fert sources is helping diminish rot and too lush of growth.

For obtusifola or phlebophylla pure gravel seems to be the best choice from what I saw in Oz. (WIld and container grown) Trying to not transplant whenever possible is a great idea too since Acacias hate root damage. Friends starting in the final container seem to have the nicest plants.

For all of teh above its worth considering that they seem to grow where their roots can tap into water sources either nearby or underground. Even if their soil is lacking or largely lacking in organics they are going to be accessing organics along with that water due to the assorted muck that lines watercourses.

I have to wonder how much of a role mycorrhiza and endophytic fungi play in this. The best cactus growere I know in terms of getting lots of growth of nicely natural appearing cacti use added mycorrhizal and bacterial "soil conditioners" and soil blends with low organics but not no organics. It may turn out to be that maintaining hte health of endohytes in cacti is as important as in other species of plants. I don't know that this is an area that has been studied yet or not?

Edited September 2, 2007 by trucha