Help identifying an unusual Echinopsis?

[jellycacti]

Hi everyone! I picked up this unlabeled cactus a couple of weeks ago at the local nursery, as it seemed rather unusual to me. With the ridged form and the fuzzy buds, I thought it must be an Echinopsis.

But after combing through all the databases, I can't find one that has this dark green/violet coloration (more typical of an Eriosyce really), black upcurving central spines, or a flower that looks quite like this one, with a deep bowl of anthers, recessed stigma and short rounded petals. The flower is borne away from the body of the plant on a short furry floral tube. You can see the violet tones best in the first picture, but they're quite evident, it's not just a trick of the light. It's in a 4.5 inch pot, if that helps judge its size—perhaps 2 inches in diameter, and just the single stem, no pupping.

It's somewhat reminiscent of Echinopsis arachnacantha, but I have several of those, and this plant is much more globular and dark green/violet rather than green/brown/black, and the spines and flower form are not quite the same.

Any ideas?

I'm also hoping the brown spots are just old scarring and not a sign of an infestation I haven't come across yet, fingers crossed. It seems pretty healthy otherwise.

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[DaveW]

Looks like a Lobivia from the flower.

Hard to tell without a closeup, but the brown spits may be puncture marks from something like red spider mite which usually disappear into hidden nooks and cranny's, whereas mealy bugs are usually obvious on the plants. Spider Mites are very small so you can only just about see them and often only when they move. In bad cases with thousands of bites the epidermis goes brown.

https://www.sublimesucculents.com/spide ... nts-cacti/

http://magicactus.com/red_spider.html

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/orname ... ontrol.htm

Of course down the bottom of plants you do get natural barking where the skin does go brown in age.

[jellycacti]

The flower does look a bit like Lobivia jajoiana (aka Echinopsis marsoneri)! I had looked through the Lobivias as well, but haven't yet found one that came close to this stem color and spination.

[Aloinopsis]

And you may not find one that comes close. Many of the Lobivias vary naturally a lot both in terms of spination, stem color, and flower color.

Echinopsis haematantha (or Lobivia amblayensis) for example can be very dark stemmed and have these flowers.

But it could easily be another species that also varies a lot.

That's why you see "Lobivia hybrid" or "Echinopsis hybrid" a lot, but rarely see the species involved.

[phil_SK]

Fairly confident that it's Echinopsis haematantha.

[jellycacti]

Thanks for the suggestions! I try to get as close as I can with species names, since I show at CSSA shows and identification is a significant part of the score. I'm OK with entering plants as hybrids, but I know I'll get a get some flack for laziness if the judges can identify it as a known species.

The flower form is similar to Echinopsis haematantha, but looking at the description and googling an array of pictures of it, I don't see anything that comes close to this glossy dark green/purple epidermis. The central spines on haematantha are also much longer, and the radial spines aren't held as close to the body. I really don't see any Echinopsis anywhere that have a body this dark, aside from E. ancistrophora, which doesn't have this almost-aubergine coloration.

[Aloinopsis]

Google is not helpful. Remember that very often the forms seen in cultivation are simply those descended from the original collector. A portion of those will find their way to Google. But in reality species (especially Lobivias) have a much wider variation in form of spines, flowers, and all the associated parts. Google searches present themselves as deceptively authoritative, but they can easily be (and in these cases, often are) incomplete representations.