pedro corners

[planthelper]

in the book plants of the gods is a picture of a four sided pedro if i remeber correctly.

at the mercado modelo i once saw a pedro with 11 corners for sale, i remeber it was far more expensive than the normal 5 and 6 cornered pedros.

somewhere i read that some pedros even have 13 corners!

the more corners, the stronger seems to be the peruvian shamans rule.

uneven nummbers are prefered to straight nummbers.

well some of this might have religious and mythological believes attached to, but those brujos use that stuff since thousands of years so i think it has foundation!!

but how does this all make sence?

can a normal 5 cornered pedro, turn into an 11 cornered one?

or are in fact some of those pedros different species, which naturally display more corners?

is the pedro in plant's of the god's in fact a four cornered bridgesii?

gotta go now, more later...

[zee_werp]

The more ribs a cactus has, the greater its surface area (for two plants of the same width that is). Since most of the alkaloids are contained near the surface, there is a much greater amount of alkaloid-bearing flesh in a 7 or 8 ribbed cactus than in a 5 ribbed one of the same strain.

However I have heard that the 4 ribbed ones are considered the most 'sacred' as they represent the four winds or something like that. Not sure how solid that info is though.

[teonanacatl]

yeah the four corner ones were supposed to be more sacred because they represented the 4 directions i believe. they will drop them and gain them willy nilly.

[planthelper]

so nobody seems to know if a 13 sided pedro is a pachanoi or a terschekii?

terschekii seem to naturaly display more ribs.

i am dissapointed...

i think you didn't get my drift...

are many corners a trait of certain species or an age thing or a rare occurence?????

or a mixture of all the above?

i think to remeber that old big pedros in sa had more ribs....

and thx, z_w, i never thought of what you said before, but it seems you are spot on!

[kakti]

Generally speaking, the older and more mature a cactus is, the more ribs it will have. If a cactus is stressed, such as being used as a cutting, it will often drop a rib or two. Once it gets going again, it will add more ribs as needed. Genetics is also an obvious factor, Terscheckiis tend to have many ribs, Pachanois less. 13 ribs seems like too many for a Pachanoi IMO, but I've never seen a fully mature one.

[macro]

Generally speaking, the older and more mature a cactus is, the more ribs it will have.

I had a T.pach pup come out with about 11 ribs once, though it's slowly losing them as it gets older. It's since thrown out a pup with a more regular 6 ribbed growth pattern.