Gymnocalycium

cactusboston · Post by **cactusboston** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 3:38 am

Please, help to identify this plant

Lewis_cacti · Post by **Lewis_cacti** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 8:44 am

Gymnocalycium quehlianum?

cactusboston · Post by **cactusboston** » Sun Jul 27, 2008 10:01 pm

It looks more like G.ochoterenai/vatteri or G.occultum to me. Can not decide which one is this.
G.quehlianum has 4 spines, the one on the photo has 3. So, it is still a mystery to me.

Post by **daiv** » Mon Jul 28, 2008 2:36 pm

G. ochoterenae seems most likely to me. But how can one know for sure? These plants can vary so much in appearance. Is 3 vs. 4 spines a reliable ID tool for this species?

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 3:14 am

what about triacanthum, mine looks pretty close. your pics have a bluish tone to them, I don't know if the plant is bluish green or the pic.

Lewis_cacti · Post by **Lewis_cacti** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 8:14 am

daiv wrote:G. ochoterenae seems most likely to me. But how can one know for sure? These plants can vary so much in appearance. Is 3 vs. 4 spines a reliable ID tool for this species?

I doubt it, Gymnos are a highly variable genus. My G.quehlianum has a very similar flower and 3 spines per areole, but it has less ribs than cactusboston's though. G.ochoterenae does look most likely.

Mike · Post by **Mike** » Tue Jul 29, 2008 11:30 am

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... n%26sa%3DG

Have a look at some of these - stellatum, ochoterenae, quehlianum - they seem awfully vareiable and hard to distinguihs.

birdguy34 · Post by **birdguy34** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 1:00 am

We recently had a speaker from Argentina at my local cactus club and showed all these species and erinaceum and said that at pretty much any given stop within their range you could find all variations of them and tended to call all of them erinaceum. Just makes it harder for us not having been to habitat to Id our plants
Chris

cactusboston · Post by **cactusboston** » Thu Jul 31, 2008 2:03 pm

Mike, thank you for the link. It is quite useful.
I guess I hit really sensitive area with this one :) .
True, that this genus is highly variable. Fortunately enough cultivation conditions are same or similar for most of Gymnos and plants are quite forgiving. In the end, in this case label is just a formality. I will put it as G.ochoterenai v.? for time being.
Thanks for the discussion.