Rebutia and Aylostera

A more in depth look at individual cactus species, a new one is added each month -managed by Hob
DaveW
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Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by DaveW »

As nobody seems to be coming up with a new genus for April, what about Rebutia and Aylostera (excluding Sulcorebutia which we had in the past) that are some of the first to flower after winter? They were usually "lumped" in the past under Rebutia, though modern DNA Sequencing shows they arose from different lines and their similarity is solely due to convergence through inhabiting similar habitats, therefore should not really be combined in the same genus. However for most of us the two genera are hard to tell apart, hence their lumping solely on morphology in the past, plus there are probably far more Aylostera's than Rebutia's, though they were all called Rebutia's in the past.

An article in the Essex Succulent Review in the link below helps sort out the confusion:-

http://www.essexsucculentreview.org.uk/ ... h-2015.pdf

Aylostera simoniana WR 739
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Aylostera albiflora
A.-albiflora.jpg
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Aylostera muscula
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Aylostera albipilosa
A.-albipilosa.jpg
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Aylostera heliosa
heliosa2.jpg
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Aylostera pygmaea WR 646
R.-pygmaea WR646.jpg
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Aylostera perplexa
perplexa3.jpg
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And a sole Rebutia.

Rebutia violaciflora
violaciflora.jpg
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Grimm
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by Grimm »

Good choice! Of all of his cacti my Dad's albiflora made the biggest impression on me when I was growing up.

My Aylostera/Rebutia hoffmannii is currently on it's second set of flowers this year. Whether hoffmannii is a valid species of not seems to be questioned, although I noticed that Lode's new classifications has it as one.

I do find that digital cameras struggle with the flowers though, tending to flatten the colours. The best photo I have is of my unlabelled one, which seems to be the white spined version of heliosa:

Image

Edit: hoffmannii today with flowers, buds and even a seed pod lurking around the back (follow the dried flower and you'll see the small pod). Note, this is one of my cacti that I'm trialing in a plastic pot rather than my usual porous ceramic. It has grown massively, but I'm not sure if I'm happy with how it's grown, it looks a bit bloated to me:

Image

Image
Last edited by Grimm on Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
DaveW
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by DaveW »

Yes I have that white spined heliosa too. The problem with photographing our plants in flower is they only open their flowers fully in bright sunlight, which is acknowledged to be the worst type of lighting for photography. Producing a range from clogged up shadows to burnt out highlights because it's greater than the cameras dynamic range, therefore the camera exposes midway between the two. It is always best in digital to expose for the highlights so these do not burn out. We do not notice this with the human eye when looking at a plant since the human eye scans the view in front of us rapidly adjusting for light and bright parts and then the brain produces a composite picture of what we see, something the camera cannot do.

Even better is to use a diffuser between the sun and the plant. Not a flash diffuser on a flash gun or strobe. I would always avoid using flash for flowers if daylight is available since it is much better lighting. The best photographic lighting is said to be a bright sunny day with the sun veiled with thin white cloud to diffuse the light, so a diffuser is in effect a "portable thin white cloud". This video explains it and these diffusers are available much cheaper off EBAY than the branded ones from photo stores.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVV4mcfygQo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmb_kDFYgfw
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7george
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by 7george »

When you are shooting home plants the solution is not hard, we can always move these small pots to some shade or better light spot. Just you have to be at home before flowers close up. Even shade is better than bright sun, you can always can add some contrast editing the photo.
Aylostera muscula_2245.JPG
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Aylostera muscula_23.JPG
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Image
Rebutia krainziana.
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
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Grimm
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by Grimm »

My issue is that digital cameras seem to struggle to define reds, red-oranges and oranges, tending to flatten them more than other colours, which is a particular problem with Aylostera as most of them have red-to-orange flowers which are very beautiful in real life but often look lifeless in photos (all my opinion, I've not read up on it so can't be definitive).

As for bright sunlight vs diffuse sunlight, I have the attached photo of my grafted heliosa taken on the same day last year under both conditions:

Image

As a bit of background, if anyone is interested, it's grafted onto Hylocereus and was badly bloated when I bought it from growing in low light conditions, I may try de-grafting it this year. I have progress photos of the body hardening up and the new spine growth getting denser.

It's also worth noting that heliosa and albiflora are the basis for some of the most popular cactus hybrids currently on the market. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of any in flower. I do have an albiflora x heliosa but I only bought it last year and it's been very sickly for most of that time; it did come with seed pods though, and I have some seedlings from it, which could have any any kind of flower as I have no idea what the male plant(s) was/were!
DaveW
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by DaveW »

The first thing to do always with photo's for the web is to calibrate your computer monitor. Most computer monitors out of the box are not set up for processing photo's, but for easy reading of text.

https://improvephotography.com/4440/how ... o-editing/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nVpeP0QQVU

There are some free online ones too:-

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-online- ... e-monitor/

I actually use an EyeOne monitor calibrator occasionally which sets the colours to standardised settings, though I understand the publishing trade often calibrate their monitors for correct colour balance daily since they can "drift" off colour in use slightly, but we are not that critical.

I suppose it depends what digital camera you have and whether you post process your images or use them straight from the camera? With most digital cameras you can adjust the colour saturation if you go into the menu. They used say amateur films of the type you purchased at the chemist or drug store were set to produce over saturated results because the non photographers used to like the more flattering over saturated colours which made a dull day in Manchester look like high summer on the Costa del Brava. Whereas professional film produced more muted natural colours.

The move to digital continued that with entry level cameras "out of the box" set to produce more saturated colours, whereas prosumer and professional cameras out of the box provided less saturated colours since those using them were expected to be more experienced and post process their images anyway, or adjust the camera to the settings they wanted using the menu. However most digital cameras can now have the colour balance altered to produce results just like the entry level cameras through adjustments in the menu.

https://digital-photography-school.com/ ... al-camera/

However mucking about with your camera's colour balance is pointless if you have not calibrated your monitor first, since you will not know if they are correct and you cannot judge from the small image on a cameras monitor screen. Also the lighting the flower is taken under will affect the colour. For instance a red flower taken under a bright blue sky will have a blue cast from the sky added to the red, which is why I use a diffuser between the sun and flower for truer photographic lighting.

Of course our own colour perception may not be that good. You can take this test and see. "FACT: 1 out of 255 women and 1 out of 12 men have some form of color vision deficiency. So it's true women have a better colour sense than many men.

https://www.xrite.com/hue-test?PageID=77&Lang=en
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7george
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by 7george »

If you focus on flowers usually other parts of the cactus body get shaded or blurred. Merging 2 images into one also results in half quality. In most cases shooting from distance in cloudy hours, cropping and editing afterwards work best for me. The monitor should be adjusted for your vision, you'll never know how the photo actually looks at other guys screens.

Image
Rebutia minuscula aff.
As a bit of background, if anyone is interested, it's grafted onto Hylocereus and was badly bloated when I bought it from growing in low light conditions, I may try de-grafting it this year. I have progress photos of the body hardening up and the new spine growth getting denser.
Stem and spines of grafted cacti will never be the same as of those on own roots. I prefer small semi-burred plants even slower growing with less blooms.
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
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DaveW
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by DaveW »

I really ought to have moved this and my previous one to Photography, but as the comments stated here and are linked to the previous pictures I have left it here.

Actually, as with most other things there are international standards for calibrating computer monitors George for viewing and processing photo's, rather than adjusting for your own vision which may be faulty when it comes to colour perception and men's colour perception as stated before is nowhere as good as most women's. Therefore adjusting to your vision may be OK if you are only going to see it on your monitor, but if using pictures on the Web they may be way out for other people viewing on their monitors. Alas many computer monitors straight out of the box are not adjusted to international standards for photography, but for easy reading of text etc, or the factory workers idea of what looks OK.

http://www.color.org/displaycalibration.xalter

Most serious photographers use a calibrator set to international standards to properly calibrate their screens rather than rely on their own possible defective eyesight. Therefore if everybody's screen was calibrated to this International standard all would see the same colours. As I said, I use an X- Rite Eye One Display 2 screen calibrator, though there are several others on the market like the Spyder etc. As you can see to calibrate a monitor properly it is better not to just rely on your own eyes but to set it to an internationally agreed standard. Seems a bit pointless photographers spending many hundreds of Pounds or Dollars on a digital camera then begrudging a hundred or so on a screen calibrator in order to get your post processing correct.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdYBuGpi5oo

This one is for the Spyder. The lady echo's Grimm's comment that many computers are adjusted far too blue which will wash out the reds in the photo, so rather than being Grimm's camera at fault it is possibly his computer screen that is wrongly adjusted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1liCpcyWBQk
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7george
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by 7george »

That Aylostera heliosa above has clear or dark orange flowers for me, I see no red tones inside on those tepals.
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
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DaveW
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by DaveW »

Same white spined R. heliosa in my collection, which has more orange flowers as George says, so you may need to check your screen callibration Grimm, although the flower colour on your plant on my screen does not look much different to my plant.
Wheliosa.jpg
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Just to show it is not my camera reproduciing reds incorrectly, since there are some red flowered forms of R. heliosa, plus my screen when I processed them both was colour calibrated using an EyeOne calibrator,

R. heliosa ssp. solisioides.
R.-heliosa-solisioides.jpg
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Both above plants taken on a Nikon D200 with 70mm-180mm Micro Nikkor lens post processed using Photoshop Elements 14. I shoot RAW and just correct exposure and sharpness, no colour correction used.
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7george
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by 7george »

I always liked what John Pilbeam was saying in his book Rebutia (1997) about Rebutia care:
Rebutia_4417.JPG
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So I don't water adult plants very often. Keeping those dry for some time during the summer after first bloom may induce second later bloom for some species. But smaller seedlings need more water, esp. kept under sun. I like to keep some spare seedlings from species that produce seeds.

Image
Aylostera muscula.
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
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ElieEstephane
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by ElieEstephane »

I really thought the flowers would be bigger on these battled and bruised rebutia hybrid plants
The aylostera i posted for ID the other time has more than a dozen buds so hopefully that would be a good show
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There are more cacti in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
One of the few cactus lovers in Lebanon (zone 11a) :mrgreen:
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7george
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by 7george »

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It's still Rebutia time, isn't it?
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
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ElieEstephane
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by ElieEstephane »

7george wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 1:54 am It's still Rebutia time, isn't it?
Yep it still is
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There are more cacti in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
One of the few cactus lovers in Lebanon (zone 11a) :mrgreen:
DaveW
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Re: Rebutia and Aylostera

Post by DaveW »

What were your "Rebutia hybrids" above hybridised with Ellie? They look a lot like the normal Rebutia (Aylostera) albiflora to me?
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This is my Rebutia (Aylostera) archibuiningiana, which came years ago from a friend as "R. buiningii"
archibuiningiana.jpg
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