One new and an old one.

[Snowfella]

Figured I'd toss these 2 up here as no other forums seem to be able to make sence out of them.

Old one, been in the ground for a year now and not made much of a headway.

Recen't photo

And not long after I planted it out over a year ago.

And the recent one, purchased just the other week in a 7cm pot.

[Evil Genius]

Hi Snowfella, nice Cacti! Both are from the Taquimbalensis/Tacaquirensis Group. Second one is probably Taquimbalensis and first one Tacaquirensis. Werdermannianus is also possible for the first one but i rather think not because it is not really fat enough. But theres a good possibility it could also be Werdermannianus. All cacti from this Group are very similar and descriptions are pretty much messed up because there are so many subspecies and varieties that they should have just made one big species. You know, Terscheckii is VERY similar to Werdermannianus too so it would have been better to put them in one big group together.

Edited June 22, 2012 by Evil Genius

[Stillman]

Hamiltons stock, did it come with a label? Mine all did. They were labelled either T pasacana T Terscheckii or T candicans

Your first one looks like the one I bought as T pasacana Second one i s bit different though. Sort of like the T candicans they sell but not the same. My moneys on EG being closer to the money with these the then Hamiltons lol.

Hey EG if you got a minute what would you classify this one as? Hamiltons stock bought as Terscheckii

[Snowfella]

Yup, Hamiltons stock indeed. And both came with a very informative "cactus" label! Lol Do have the other 3 varieties that came with labels but these 2 look different from them. Might grab some more photos of em when i get home from work.

[Snowfella]

Alright, here's shots of the ones that came labeled from Hamiltons. Mind you they are still but seedlings to might be hard to lock down to a specific species.

2 different ones with T. pasacana labels. Look very different to my eyes.

2 with T. terscheckii labels.

And 2 T. candicans labeled plants

And another unlabeled one aswell.

[Stillman]

bottom one looks like a cereus maybe? The other differences may be soil/ moisture growth stage variance. They look healthy as. How slow do they grow but lol

I grafted mine to a piece of T spach its growing alright I think, hopefully this summer it will start to look like a Tersch.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Stillman

[Snowfella]

They indeed are slow, then again we have had a horrid summer in the Sydney area. Nothing really grew well apart from my C. peruvians that went nuts, guess nothing can stop one of them though.

Growth comparison between the C. peruvians and the top on in this thread.

May last year, C. peruvians had just been moved into that spot. The Tricho whever it is is the little green blob infront of the center rock.

March this year. The Tricho still infront of the same rock but I was forced to take a step or 2 back to get the peruvians fully in frame.

[Evil Genius]

Hi Guys, will get to all the plants posted but there´s a few things that make this difficult. A wholesale Nursery like Hamiltons or Bunnings wont have seed supliers that differentiate so thoroughly like real specialists do. There are only a few people who have the experience that is needed to differentiate between all the species and subspecies of Terscheckii, Pasacana, Werdermannianus and and and. Under the current taxonomy, Trichocereus Pasacana isnt an accepted species anymore. Its not even Echinopsis Pasacana; its Echinopsis Atacamensis subspecies Pasacana. Trichocereus Werdermannianus is not existant anymore. There is an Echinopsis Werdermannii but its not the same but a small clumping Echinopsis. Trichocereus Werdermannianus was lumped into Trichocereus Terscheckii which is now called Echinopsis Terscheckii. So far so good. Now, our modern taxonomy agrees on the fact that everywhere Echinopsis Atacamensis ssp. Pasacana and Echinopsis Terscheckii grow together (what is very oftenly the case), there are hybrids that can not be certainly assigned to one of these species. There are countless intermediates that commercial nurseries get their stock from so its pretty pointless to differentiate between them because its most likely speculation. Especially at a young age like this. Most specialists can only ID such a plant when looking at 5 meter tall Giants, encluding having watched both flowers and fruits. But this doesnt mean we cant at least try.

Snowfella, your second Plant is Trichocereus Taquimbalensis. I am sure because its a pretty unique cactus. I have had very large Motherplants and know the species pretty well. After having checked many Descriptions today, i am sure the first one is not Tacaquirensis. Tacaquirensis has very chaotic spines that dont like so neat as the ones on your plant. If Trichocereus Werdermannianus would still be a valid species, i would probably call it that. Whats interesting is the uncommon skin color, what makes me think it could also fit into the Taquimbalensis range. I dont think that it is Pasacana because the spines are way too neat and straight and have more brown undertones than i am used from it. In my definition, pasacana has very chaotic spines, some longer, some shorter. Very oftenly, they are pointed in diffrent directions. Terscheckii would also be thinkable but i see more similarities to Taquimbalensis than to a typical terscheckii.

Stillman, your grafted plant or plants in Post three are a good example for a rather chaotic Spination that is common for Pasacana. I would call them Pasacana.

Snowfella, the plants in post 5 are really very diffrent to each other. These pic show very beautifully why some plants just cant be put into a certain category because there are so many forms. Second one certainly has a very weird spine and skin color but its a little bit too early to tell how it looks when it grows taller. I would love to see some more pics of the second plant in the future. First one would probably better fit into Terscheckii but its hard to say without having seen the motherplant.

The two labeled as Terscheckii could certainly be called either Terscheckii or Pasacana, depending on where you wanna put them. Spines look a little bit less chaotic than what i would expect from Pasacana so i can see why they put them into Terscheckii.

The two Candicans are out the question and definately Candicans. Will need to have a closer look at the last one but that might take a day or two. It looks like a cereus.

Edited June 23, 2012 by Evil Genius

[solomon]

Hey EG, let me know if you want me to send you a pic of a wild atacamensis x tersheckii hybrid from Salta.

The Great Cacti, Ethnobotany & Biogeography has a great section on atacamensis, pasacana, tersheckii etc.

Snowfella, just compared EGs IDs on your plants to plants labelled the same in my garden and they all match.

Do Pasacana get that as fat as tersheckii as seedlings? All the tersheckii seedlings I have seen have been more plump.

Edited June 23, 2012 by centipede

[Evil Genius]

Snowfella, because of your last picture. I am looking at a cactus that grows very unlike a typical cereus when getting bigger so i am really not sure about the ID but the picture looks like the spitten Image of your cactus. You dont have the Cactus Lexicon from Andersson by any chance, do you? The cactus i mean is Austrocactus Spiniflorus. The images you find online dont look very much like the plant in the cactus lexicon because there were many diffrent type of related plants being lumped into that species. It contains now Opuntia Spiniflora, Corryocactus Spiniflorus, Opuntia Bicolor, Opuntia Clavata, Eylichnia Clavata, Echinocereus Clavatus and and and. But all should be pretty much one species.

As an alternative i could image it to be some kind of Cereus Validus but the spine color does not match very much.

Centipede, PM´d. ;-)

Edited June 23, 2012 by Evil Genius

[Stillman]

I'm cool with that thanks for taking the time EG. Hopefully in a year or so with the stock pushing it the plant may start to look more impressive.

[Snowfella]

Cheers EG! I'll try to take in all that info when i get back home from work this afternoon, just hope they are all frost proof as I'm having the first real frost this winter right now.

Another thing about Hamiltons aswell is that it generally is up to whoever is potting up the seedlings to grab the appropriate label and they are far from right all the time. Found many a miss labeled Mammillaria in their poly tunnels.

[Snowfella]

Alright, I've had a look in Andersson's "The cactus family" and I suspect plant #5 isn't Austrocactus Spiniflorus but rather some kind of Cereus. Mine is just to large in size to fit in with the description, probably should of included some size reference to the photo. In the photo it's planted in a 15cm pot and it's now near a foot tall and continues to grow in a columnar fashion.

Will have to see what it becomes and it and most of the other plants in these photos are headed in the ground come spring, finalised my plans for another outdoors bed the other day and I'll be getting the missing bits and pieces hopefully over the coming days.