a bridgesii from Backeberg

[trucha]

Early this year I was fortunate enough to have opportunity to get some photos of plants I had only previously been able to see from a distance (thanks to the help of the curator of the Desert Garden at the Huntington)

More recently I have been tabulating the Echinopsis/Trichocereus accession records of that institution and noticed that in February of 1932 they received some bridgesii seedlings from Curt Backeberg.

The following are on the huge plant that still exists there from that acquisition (one of at least 5 bridgesii collections in their collection)

[Evil Genius]

Nice! I wonder if he sold them to the Huntington or if it was a present. I thought that the Huntington would have even more than five Bridgesiis! I assume that there are countless bridgesiis available on the market! bye Eg

[trucha]

They have 5 I have found (some are only visible in the closed areas) and the aff bridgesii that might be synonyous with the SS02.

They try to avoid horticultural offerings and prefer wild collections but obviously have some exceptions. They for instance have perhaps the single largest collection of Echinopsis hybrids I have ever seen in one place. Not just Hummel's but the Paramount hybrids and Bob Schick's amazing collection. One of these years I want to time a photo visit to coincide with their flowering.

If anyone has wondered why some of the paths are closed it is due to large dangerous plants threatening to topple with a slight breeze. Some of the areas are literally potentially life threatening due to the gigantic treesized yuccas with rotted out stems. Its a miracle some are still able to stand but I can't imagine how they would get in there to take them out.

[bit]

Crickey... that does look like the backeberg pachanoi.

[trucha]

I'm curious and quite puzzled about that comment? Can you show me a picture of or provide a link to what you refer to?

The pachanoi images that Backeberg shows (any of the three photograph of his in his entry on pachanoi) looks like a typical pachanoi such as Knize ships and has very short spines. To me these look like rather typical bridgesiis

Thanks!

Edited September 6, 2007 by trucha

[bit]

This is the so called 'backeberg clone' pachanoi. I think the rib formation and areole orientation is extemely similar, only the spine length seems to differ..

Photo by MS

[M S Smith]

Yeah, I conjectured in the past that the plant in my photo [innacuratly known as the "Backeberg clone" and now called the "predominant cultivar" (PC) by kt] has a closer relationship to the T. bridgesii of Bolivia than it does to the proper T. pachanoi of Ecuador and Peru. I actually sent this same photo to Brian Bates of cactus_etc, who lives in Bolivia, and he wrote back saying it looked to him like T. bridgesii.

Passive Daemon's T. bridgesii limb with short spines really looks like the "PC" plant.

~Michael~

[faslimy]

Shouldn't that be PCofUSA? hehe. I totally agree that the shape of the body is very much like some bridgesii

[chilli]

Shouldn't that be PCofUSA? hehe. I totally agree that the shape of the body is very much like some bridgesii

Faslimy, does this Backeberg clone or PC Pachanoi exist in NZ?

[faslimy]

I have not seen it, but i suspect it does.

[trucha]

No short designation can be acceptably accurate so I started calling it pachanoi PC. I started out repeatedly describing it as the "predominate Western cultivar of pachanoi at least here in the US" or some variant of this growing progressively shorter but grew tired of repeating that many words hence collapsing it to pachanoi PC. If anyone has a better suggestion for what to call it I am open to it. I'm just being lazy and trying to find a simple designation.

It does exist in Oz but is far from being the most common one there. Friends tell me it is quite common in Victoria but in NSW, the only place I've spent time, it is less common than the one termed a spiny scop in San PEdro and far less common than the thin spined pachanois with spines a cm or so long. I've heard it is uncommon in Queensland but have only passed through Brisbane and have spent no time there. I've only passed through the airport in NZ and spent one night in a hotel in between flights.

It is also in Europe and in South Africa but is probably not the main forms there either.

As for the bridgesii, I have no argument the stepped edges are shared by pachanoi PC and this. Nor that they have some similarities in appearance. Nor that, like the rest of all pachanois, they are likely to lie within one single variable species.

However, if not for my poor images the areoles and spination would be visibly distinctive from each other. The bridgesii tend to have a flattened top on the areoles, sometimes a horizontal flattening to a pronounced degree, short curving v-marks on most but not all and spine packing that more oftenthan not diverges from the spreading pattern of the pachanoi. It not infrequently has two spines coming out in parallel which is somehting that won't be seen on the pachanoi.

Other features that can tell them apart even from a distance if they were growing side by side:

The coloration is different and tends more towards ligher and more grey-green as opposed to the darker and more bluishgreen tint of the pachanoi on new growth when both are in some shading.

It is more slender than the pachanoi. The larger columns were around two inches in diameter and most were around 1.5 inches.

It also did not get as tall as a pachanoi would. Elsewhere in the garden predation by humans could be blamed but this was not an accessible plant so was an intact stand with a large number of branches.

Almost all branches were at or near the base. It had over twenty 5-8 foot tall branches on a single specimen.

One key difference that can be observed on almost any large bridgesii including this one is a tendency somewhere on the plant for the broadly rounded ribs divided by well defined furrows (similar to pachanoi) to have the furrows turn into a sort of flattened and broadly concave shape. A "whorish spreading of the flanks" is one possible translation of this feature appearing in Foerster's description for lageniformis. Pachanoi can lose the furrows too but goes rounded rather than becoming broadly flattened and dished in. This feature occurs somewhere on most bridgesii forms when they get large.

I need to get more photos of that plant to better illustrate this as most of mine turned out fuzzy. Those images were taken when I was just learning to use my new camera and were shot handheld rather than tripoded. I have a much better lens now but don't know when the next time I can get permission to access the plant will be. I will attempt to do so later this month when I am next there.

It seems a bit problematic to put too much faith in Brian Bates as he has also told me he has only seen a few pachanoi in his life and that none are native to Bolivia. I would not put too much weight to his comment or even his opinions on these particular trichs in general. He told me earlier this year that he has avoided them as they are all introduced rather than native and are used only for narcotic purposes in Bolivia. I have had a good amount of communication with Brian in recent years and have not found him to be particularly knowledgeable about this area unless it involves some of the southern larger columnars or the globular cactus about which is knows much more. He told me he has not travelled in the areas where scopulicola and riomizquiensis were reported by Ritter and was not familiar with them

How many photos did Brian based his conclusion on?

PIctures really suck for making comparisons of plants or identifications as so many are needed to reach any realistic view. Having the plants in front of a person in real life is the only meaningful thing and even then return visits to see flowers and fruit and new growth and older growth as well as seeing the same plants growing in other people's gardens and under different conditions are really needed to construct a view that has some meaning.

It would be interesting to locate an image of any pachanoi growing in Bolivia for comparison but so far I have been unable to do this. I had several friends travelling in Bolivia this year specifically try to help without any success.

One thing undermining Michael's conclusions of a southern origin for the pachanoi PC is the field work of people like the former owners of of the jungle who have spent considerable time in both Ecuador and Peru, as well as travelling in Bolivia and, unlike Brian, have serious levels of familiarity with assorted pachanoi forms due to being commercial propagators for many years.

They have told me that plants looking just like the common Western cultivar is widely used as fencing material in Ecuador (as well as confirming the existence of a range of pachanois extending from very stair-stepped edged through very smooth edged and short spined through longer spined - all occurring within Ecuador. They have also stressed that a whole spectrum of intergrades exist between these and peruvianus in Southern Ecuador and into Peru. Rob has long expressed the opinion that pachanoi and peruvianus are one species and that the pachanoi pc is just one small part of this spectrum.)

One nice thing about their observations is they were there as botanical collectors for extended periods going far off the beaten trails and did not stick to the tourist paths where the photos that can be encountered online have all been from (or at least this has been true for the entirety of what has been shared with me thusfar).

I also had a friend who spent around two months in Ecuador earlier this year specifically look into this and tell me the same thing (that plants identical to our common cultivar are growing there). As was the case for many travellers his digital camera and bag was stolen so I sadly can't offer photos.

The best support for a southern origin at the moment is one single cutting of Horst's that he sold as riomizquiensis that looks similar but due to Horst's well established problems with mixed up trichs that needs to be viewed with caution as it does not match Ritter's photo of riomizquiensis nor even Horst's seed grown versions of riomizquiensis.

There was a short spined bridgesii form Michael showed me a photo of but to me this looked far more like an intermediate than it did the pachanoi pc.

As for the pachanoi pc, I would suggest that plants such as either one of the two separate Ecuadorian field collections in the Huntington (H 93418 and H 73000) and the pachanoid collected at Los banos Ecuador all look far more similar to the pachanoi pc (or even to backeberg's bridgesii) in profile than they do to the preferred drug sort of pachanoi.

Again though I don't think any of the pachanoi forms lie outside of one species and I tend to think that macrogonus, peruvianus or bridgesii do not either and that ALL of them most likely merit a subspecific status within one variable species. Within the next year we should know more as the ongoing work in Zurich should surely be published before too much longer?

It (bridgesii) is said to have short spined forms but I have yet to see a true bridgesii (as opposed to materials that appeared to be intermediates suggestive of hybridization) that does not produce a number of longer spines under some conditions. Perhaps they exist but so far I have not yet seen one stay true to form?

The pachanoi pc on the other hand seems variable but longer spines only appear towards the base on large mother plants and then extremely seldomly. (I have never seen one as long as is common on bridgesii) Bridgesii too can have few or even no spines on some areoles of course.

Britton & Rose, early Spanish invaders, Backeberg and Ostolaza (who did an intensive study of pachanoi in order to create the description with floral dissections) all mention pachanoi as having spines that are absent or short but that can be longer. None describe it as typically being a spiny or long spined cactus just that it can have some longer spines and still be a pachanoi. Up to 1-2 cm on the longest spine is how Britton & Rose termed it but they also described them as being absent in the cultivated plants that they also suggested to be the bulk of what they found and their photo in habitat is clearly not of a long spined plant (one needs a magnifying glass to examine this and this is more easily done in the online copy of NYBG voucher than in the printed version).

That said I do agree that all of these are very likely to be within one species.

Edited September 9, 2007 by trucha

[M S Smith]

One thing undermining Michael's conclusions of a southern origin for the pachanoi PC is the field work of people like the former owners of of the jungle who have spent considerable time in both Ecuador and Peru, as well as travelling in Bolivia and, unlike Brian, have serious levels of familiarity with assorted pachanoi forms due to being commercial propagators for many years.

You repeatedly tend to address my conjectures as "conclusions." I have not concluded anything regarding a southern origin of the PC plant, and in fact have stated the need for further study regarding this. Nor have a said that the PC is a T. bridgesii, but rather that it bears more similarities to T. bridgesii (IMHO) than to the T. pachanoi of Ecuador and Peru. I am well aware of the variability in these plants and one of the most interesting items I would like to see explored is if there is a natural presence of the PC clone anywhere in Bolivia. I am particularly interested in the PC's relation to the plant which is known as T. riomiozquensis (if of course that plants presence can be shown to exist in Bolivia). I would love to see a genetic study of the PCs relation to the T. pachanoi of Ecuador and Peru and its relation to T. bridgesii of Bolivia. I suspect it will be closer to the latter, but this doesn't mean I have concluded anything.

~Michael~

Edited September 9, 2007 by M S Smith

[trucha]

An oddness with your comment is you seem to selectively reject some known Ecuadorian pachanoi collections that look more like the pachanoi pc than they do the preferred drug form pachanoi with smooth edges. In the past you've rejected these as pachanois for that reason and have referred to at least a couple of them as short spined peruvianus.

Its a bit weird as I have shared a decent number of images of those - at least four of which are known to be field collections from Ecuador.

Even more strange is that YOU included at least one in the CD of other people's images you sent to me.

One suggestion: when you download other people's images online is that you contact them, not just to ask permission for reuse of their photos but also to learn more details about where the images were taken.

Edited September 9, 2007 by trucha

[M S Smith]

I've never discounted the PC presence in Ecuador or Peru, just that is doesn't appear to be the "predominant" one there. It's presence in Ecuador and Peru doesn't mean it is from there just as plants matching Ecuador/Peru T. pachanoi having a presence in Bolivia doesn't supports them being from there.

I've never rejected the PC as a T. pachanoi as I am not opposed to the idea you continual present that they are one species. I've only been curious about relationships among however much they differ.

I no longer support a "short spined" designation on any plant. This was first brough up by me to differentiate the CC/CCC T. peruvianus from the plant that at that time was commonly believed to represent T. peruvianus, this having been the "T. peruvianus (T. cuzcoensis?)" plant. Whatever mention of "short spined" I added to Passive Daemon's T. bridgesii is completley informal.

You didn't ask me to use my pictures in any of your publications, and in fact their presence in the book (first edition) that you sent me was a suprise. I'm not using pictures for any other purpose than to share within a limited community. Most of the photos are at multiple sites throughout the internet and from people on vacation, and it's doubtful they have much to share. I haven't saved sources and since they are present online should other wish to take the time I have to collection them they they can inquire as they please. In quite a few cases I have requested information about where plants were collected, but in many cases I get no response.

~Michael~

Edited September 9, 2007 by M S Smith

[PD.]

Trichocereus Pachanoi Britton et Rose, The Cactaceae 2 (1920) 134, t. 196.

Plant 3-6 meters in height and 10 cm in diameter. Branches strict, glaucous when young, dark green in age. Ribs 6-8, basally broad, obtuse, with deep horizontal depression above areole. Spines few, 3-7, often not present, unequal, up to 1-2 cm long, brownish. Buds pointed. Flowers large, 19-23 cm long, borne near apex of branches night-blooming, very fragrant, outer perianth segments brownish red, inner segments white; filaments of staments long, greenish; style greenish below, white above; stigma lobes linear, yellowish; ovary black-pilose. Axis of scales on flower-tube and fruit with long black hairs.

The hairs on the PC are not black but mostly white with some black, grey and brown hairs, another similarity to bridgesii.

[trucha]

I'm actually surprised at your comment Michael. I'll assume it is an honest lapse of memory on your part rather than a disingenuous statement.

I have a hardwritten letter from you and copies of at least two emails specifically granting me permission to include any of your photos that you shared with me or had posted at the old SdE forums so I have to wonder how it is you make that comment.

You also granted me permission to include yet more photos that I have not. This email occurring last year.

With the exception of the decipiens drawing of Croizat and the line drawing of Salm-Dyck here is not an image or a photograph that I have ever included in any work I have done without specific permission being granted by the photographer in advance.

I pay for this by giving people a free copy of any work their photos appear in (so long as they respond and tell me where to send them) and this occurred with you also. So it puzzles me that you could be surprised. I am in fact a quite honest and ethical person as anyone who knows me will rapidly attest.

I know that I have this photo permission letter from you although it is around 8 years old so may take me some time to find. I will in fact be quite happy to do so as it is not lost but simply contained in my voluminous archives from Texas so I do know approximately which stack of papers it is in.

Even in my postings here I have incuded only the images of Backeberg and Ritter that are in violation of copyright and I have been trying to obtain such reproduction permission for some years now unsuccessfully (and am still in the process of actively trying) not for being rejected but for not being able to determine who now holds the copyrights for Ritter and Backeberg's photos.

I believe that it is neither honest or repsectful to not ask permission to use other people's photos or art in advance as you might notice from my post accompanying the posting of those images I just mentioned. I have been unsuccessfully been trying to locate that thread to delete them for some time now for that reason. I simply do not like violating copyright laws, not for sake of being in violation of the law but for disrespecting other people's intellectual property.

I also might point out that the first edition had no photos at all. Those did not appear until the 1999 second edition.

I'm curious where the description quote is from as it sort of paraphrases Britton and Rose rather than actually quoting them.

They describe the ovary as having black curled hairs. Interestingly fruit with long black hairs does not match a number of the drug preferred pachanoi in Ecuador and Peru that sometimes have almost no hair on them or have only short curly black hairs and I have yet to see one as Backberg described with the ovary covered with black hairs. No reason to think he did not see such a thing of course.

Note also that many of the drug preferred pachanois do not have a deep horizontal depression above the areoles and instead have a shallow incised line and a very smooth edged profile.

Britton & Rose's description could be read to envelope several other trich species if taken literally and would never have been accepted today. If one looks at the Rules of Nomenclature they will find its dated requirements for a Latin diagnosis was conveniently placed to permit grandfathering for the descriptions of Br & R. It is what we have of course.

pachanoi pc does have black hairs on the axils. Not entirely black of course and they are largely obscured by white hairs, sometimes mixed with brown and grey.

Most bridgesii have mostly brown although white and grey and some black are commonly mixed with them.

While there is no argument about them being similar they are also fairly distinct, as a rather typical example:

T. santaensis is similarly a mixed hair color plant with brown, white or grey wool as part of it as is pallarensis and puquiensis both of which have more brown mixed with white and grey even though peruvianus such as is around Matucana or the Etlzner material has entirely black hairs on the flower tube and ovary and both pallarensis and puquiensis are considered to be peruvianus forms by most authorities.

Hair color in general is too variable of a feature for most of these plants to be adequate for specific determination although I think it to be of some value as I will go into more below.

For instance the peruvianus I just mentioned has mixed brown and white hairs on the young flower buds but not on the developed ovary or floral tube which are entirely black.

Again though to repeat myself I suspect that none of these merit being viewed as separate species.

The mixed hair plants I see most often on intermediates which is probably where the pachanoi pc belongs. How and where it arose is still unclear but this sort of mixed hair coloration is common in assorted plants like these from Ecuador to Bolivia. I still think it was probably collected farther north as it still occurs there used as as fencing material according to friends with field experience.

I would suggest that all of these, the drug preferred pachanoi, pachanoi pc, santaensis, macrogonus, scopulicola, peruvianus, the huancabamba clone, Juul's, riomizquiensis, etc, should be collapsed into macrogonus or bridgesii/lageniformis even though although neither was properly described they are the older names. None of them have appreciably distinct flowers from each other, hair colors vary, stigma lobe numbers vary but all are a range and even within bridgesii one can find both ones with nothing but brown hairs and other ones with mixed color hairs including white suggesting those latter ones are intermediates as well. This occurrence of white and mixed haired fruit is true for peruvianus intermediates such as the huancabamba thing and also for some of the longer spined pachanoids in northern Peru. Cuzcoensis too has similar hair colors although is often sparser and its fruit splits down the underside in a fairly consistent way.

Much of the pachanoi in Oz I have seen (the longer thin spined ones) have brown hair not black or white hair but pachanois with black sparse hair (the smoother drug preferred form) or white wooly hair (appearing to be the same as pachanoi pc and purported to be brought there from Ecuador - this is distinct from the more scop-looking pachanoi there also said to have been collected in Ecuador inthe 1930s by an Australian although I was told this latter has brown hair on the fruit) also exist there. I can get fruit photos of all of these except for the last one uploaded but I can get ovary and floral tube photos for it included as well. I am starting to get backlogged with a plethora pf photos to upload and am having increasing trouble finding enough time to keep up with the forums here so please feel free to remind me if I miss some but please do this via email offlist or I am increasingly likely to miss the comments in the next few months when my schedule is about to get really hairy..

A really interesting series of hybrids was done using pachanoi pc and Juul's giant, neither of which have long spines as a norm. Juul's tends to have much sparser hair on the fruit as well but this can be variable. The resulting F1s are all over the board in term of having almost no spines to really long spines and few spines to multiple spines. Some resemble peruvianus and some resemble bridgesii and and some resemble pachanoi pc while others resemble pachanoiXperuvianus. The hair on the ovary/ffruit also is wooly and mixed browns, blacks and whites but also quite variable.

An easy answer might be that pachanoi was moved all over for millenia and saw its genes enter into assorted populations of existing trichs but another answer might be we are really looking at one single variable species diverging morphologically in different geographic regions as is common for all sorts of plants over time when separated that had that process compromised by said transplanting.

It will be interesting to see what the genetics work ongoing in Zurich turns up with.

Edited September 10, 2007 by trucha

[M S Smith]

Yes, maybe a lapse in memory, but a memory all the same that I still lack. But regardless of that, I care less honestly, and brought it up only because of your concern over how I used photos.

What I found disagreement with you regarding is the small number of repetions over my "conclusions." I am awefully careful with the choice of my words and have avoided every possibility of making declarative statements that I can't support. Any "conjectural" statements are made in the attempt not to pursuade, but rather to increase curiousity and study. Your input is something that is helpful in addressing these conjectures. And it is your comments that will survive in books, mine will die out with the new threads.

I'm not out to convince anyone of anything, but rather only to express what I think, no matter how flawed. You may disagree with my method, and that's fine.

As for the use of photos, well you may just have to find me a little less honest that yourself on that front. I burned that photo CD for you alone kt, and only a small amount of the photos have been shared publicly. Address the matter as you see fit, and I will address it as I choose. Sorry if that reflects poorly on me, but though I care for your opinions regarding me should they be lessened by my use of others' uncreditied photos then, well, jeez, I don't know, wherever.

Sorry things have got off this way.

~Michael~

[trucha]

I do respect you Michael. I also respect your observations and opinions. Nothing I've said changes that.

We do diverge somewhat on how to approach other people's images and it is less my intention to give you a hard time than to suggest it is at least respectful for people to be asked. Its certainly not like I always obey the law for the sake of it being the law, my first trip occurred 36 years ago within the next month (at age 14).

Only once have I had my requests for permission to use people's photos rejected. Most people actually express thankfulness and that they feel flattered that someone else values what they thought worthy of photographing. People might not give you collection data but it feels nice to be given permission and to be asked for it. Asking for permission first and then following their reply with a request for location data might actually aid in achieving your goal?

The only person I have ever had tell me no was Bob Ressler when I asked if I could obtain a photo of his argentinensis mislabel from Merrit Dunlop's collection. His reason was he wanted the website of him and Tony Mace to be unique in its contents. I respected that and did honor it. OF course I now have photos of that same material that I have taken so while it was not in San Pedro it can be in either the next edition (whenever that happens) and in the long ongoing trichocereus project I have been returning my attention to.

Its just a good policy whether with images or art. Due to the problematic nature of some of my publications I've had two policies since starting to publish. One was trying to obtain permission to use copyrighted materials or else altering it to the point no copyright applied (as with printed journal matter although I have probably crossed the line with some of the Szasz quotes appearing in the early editions of Sacred Cacti) and the other was maintaining no records of what my customers ordered and destroying all contact information unless they specifically requested I keep it to notify them of more publications. The second of these is increasingly difficult to impossible in the world of electronic purchases and communications sadly which is why I try to focus on sales to book sellers whenever possible rather than the more profitable retail sales.

[strangebrew]

The only person I have ever had tell me no was Bob Ressler when I asked if I could obtain a photo of his argentinensis mislabel from Merrit Dunlop's collection. His reason was he wanted the website of him and Tony Mace to be unique in its contents. I respected that and did honor it. OF course I now have photos of that same material that I have taken

Ooh, I'd love to see that, it's one I've often admired.

In Michael's defence, not that he needs it, using pictures for what are on the whole private purposes, I wouldn't think warrants going to the trouble of getting permission. Jeez, what a hassle using porn would be! It's not like he uses them on his photo site or anything. Whether or not something may be learned in the process of getting permission is another story.

[trucha]

Its really not worth pursuing but anything being shared rather than limited for personal/private use no longer falls under the private use allowances. If you aren't entertaining your neighbors or distributing DVDs your porn probably falls in that category?

I've already gone into this subject far more than I ever intended to farther above, more as a result of feeling crappy lately than anything else. Probably due to getting too many tick bites this last summer. I think I worded much overly harshly or at least said much more than I intended, and certainly with the sound of an attitude that was also not intended.

It really is worth asking permission as it frees one up to actually do something larger with them. All of us would benefit greatly if that was an option as Michael has amassed a wealth of really interesting photos (not even counting his own)

Ressler's argentinensis (my pictures are of a rooting cutting now possessed by a friend -it came from whoever got his material) is among the images already sitting in folders waiting only for resizing before posting here.

Its a bad name as it was labelled Cereus argentinensis by Dunlop, a name which is for a perfectly nice Cereus species. I got some images of that as well earlier this year but, like my camera, I was overheating badly in the sun by then so they are not as nice as I would like. Its another one not within easy sight of the public's view at the Huntington. Its amazing what they have in the areas where no one can see them. I've been told their nonpublic propagation house is even more incredible but have never seen it.

[M S Smith]

All's good kt, but I pity the fool who hasn't seen Bob's other cactus page yet.

http://community.webshots.com/user/brcacti

And if you haven't seen mine check it out.

http://flickr.com/photos/msscacti

~Michael~