Cactus in poor state

[MadridPeter]

Hi all! I got this awhile ago because I felt sorry for it ..in fact I don't know it's species..had many offsets which were dead and others very yellow and mother stem with a sickly appearance ..I repotted it removing dead offsets but didn't clear all soil off the root ball as I think this plant is severely under watered and suffering from lack of light..but in the case of desiccation the roots shrink and become weak don't they ? Should I disturb the root ball and make sure the roots are ok? Thing is I think the roots would be weak and not respond well to disturbance ..plus I think the remaining offsets would fall off

[greenknight]

Looks to me like E. ancistrophora. I'd remove all the old soil and any dead roots.

[MadridPeter]

I did it in the end and cleaned the roots as much as possible and the roots seemed better than I expected..will leave it for a week or two and water it..you sure about that ID? I can tell you it has a new flower bud with a red tint ..hmm

[iann]

Doesn't look too bad to me. Is that the bud on the front of the main stem in the photo?

[MadridPeter]

Ah no it's on the other side of the main stem under a more developed one that's looked the same for ages

[greenknight]

Totally sure? No, but it looks likely. Several species were lumped into ancistrophora, red flowers are no problem.

Mine often starts more buds than develop, they sometimes bloom years later when they're way down the side of the stem. It always has a few of those undeveloped ones, I think that bump in the first picture is another one.

[MadridPeter]

Ok great ,..I just asked if the id was for sure because plenty of wrong ids by me have made me too cautious ..really is hard especially with young plants..and hybrids!!