Intergeneric hybrids in Cacti
Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2023 3:54 pm
Does anyone have a list of known intergeneric hybrids in cacti?
These papers list some interesting crosses:
ROWLEY , G.D. (1994) Spontaneous bigeneric hy-
brids in Cactaceae. Bradleya 12: 2-7.
ROWLEY , G.D. (2004a) Intergeneric hybrids in Cac-
taceae - 2004 update. Brit. Cact. Succ. J. 22(2):
64-65, ill.
ROWLEY , G.D. (2004b) Intergeneric hybrids in Cac-
taceae - an update. Cact. Syst. Init. No. 18: 11-
28, ills.
This includes Cleistocactus × Echinocereus and Echinopsis × Echinocereus, as well as Echinopsis × Selenicereus. More if you consider Harrisia different than Echinopsis, I don't.
In fact I use a convention found here: http://www.cactusinhabitat.org/index.php?p=booklet and here:
http://www.cactusinhabitat.org/index.php?p=generi
So many of the intergeneric hybrids involving Echinopsis and other related plants are to me just interpsecific crosses in Echinopsis. This includes Oreocereus as a species of Echinopsis, something I will likely discuss later when I get to the topic of the taxonomy.
In the paper A putative Oreocereus x Echinopsis hybrid from southern Bolivia
Urs Eggli & Mario Giorgetta 2013
Link: https://giorgetta.ch/files/pdf/eggli_et ... hybrid.pdf
Several interesting hybrids between genera are listed in Table one.
This is from the appendix to table one:
Hybrids with one parent from outside tribe Trichocereeae:
Cleistocactus × Echinocereus: × Cleistonocereus (Rowley 2004a)
Echinopsis × Aporocactus (now syn. of Disocactus): ×Aporechinopsis → ×Disonopsis (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis × Echinocereus: ×Echinocereopsis (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis × Epiphyllum: ×Echinophyllum (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis × Nopalxochia (now syn. of Disocactus): ×Echinopalxochia → ×Disonopsis (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis (as Chamaecereus / as Lobivia) × Parodia (as Notocactus): ×Chamecactus = ×Notolobivia →×Echinoparodia (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis × Selenicereus: ×Seleniopsis (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis (as Lobivia) × Sulcorebutia (Ritter 1981): ×Weinganopsis Rowley 1994
Harrisia (as Eriocereus) × Cereus (Ritter 1981): ×Harricereus (Rowley 1994)
Harrisia × Selenicereus: ×Selenirisia (Rowley 2004b)
Cleistocactus × Echinocereus is interesting, though I consider Cleistocactus to be Echinopsis but Echinocereus are known to be the dwarf forms of the Pachycereoid cacti.
Many people are unaware of the ability of cacti to cross a little bit more freely than most other known plants. One of the reasons for this is that some unlikely crosses only succeed on occasion. In some families hundreds of thousands of crosses between different species are needed to achieve success because of the low likelyhood of success. If a person tried only 60,000 crosses and they all failed, they might form the erroneous opinion that the cross is impossible. In fact this type of limited thinking is widespread and after only a few failures many people actually give up on such things as interspecific and intergeneric hybridization with cacti.
This is without considering the use of methods such as auxin application to prevent fruit abortion and cut-style pollination, and other methods that people use to assist this type of hybridization.
Another objection to this type of work is based on plant racism, where the idea of pure species verses mixed species has in many ways mirrored the topic of race in other social arenas. The influence of the Nazi cactus taxonomist Ritter may also play a hidden role here, but that is another topic.
However recent molecular evidence has also indicated that over time cacti have frequently crossed with one another and that many of the species we now know actually arose as combinations of distinct forms from distinct populations. In other words racial purity rarely exists in nature and then it tends to be associated with inbreeding and defects related to this. That pure species people harp on and on about only arose because it had different ancestors.
Likewise positive sense heterosis in cacti (aka hybrid vigor) and their hybrids shows that nature offers rich rewards for hybridization,where rather than suffer from increased sterility and poor growth as is often found in interspecific crosses in other families (Capsicum has good examples of this) the novel hybrid cacti often grow faster, larger, healthier and are highly fertile, though a percentage of their F2 and F3 offspring often do run into issues do to inbreeding defects, however it is not unusual for a percentage of the F2 and F3 cacti to resemble a new species quite distinct from either parent as well. In fact this is one of the known mechanisms of hybrid speciation in cacti.
I have a specific interest in hybrid cacti (pun intended) and am looking for examples of actual photographs of Intergeneric crosses as well as peoples experiences with them.
On this note I will also share an anecdote. I once met a man who grew Pediocacti here in Utah. He had a yard full of them.
He was the biggest supplier to Mesa Garden at that time of Pediocactus.
They all flowered together and he didn't isolate them whatsoever and he literally sold the seed labeled as pure species, when it was open pollinated. I asked him about reproductive isolation and he said he did not think they even crossed. They do, but not only this, he had different forms of Pediocactus simpsonii co-flowering and for him to believe that these did not cross and to sell his seeds to various companies as pure, was less than ideal. Because of this type of thing many of the seeds available as Pediocactus in the US are not actually true to type. This also played a role in some of the Pediocactus seeds on the market having issues with germination.
These plants are much more promiscuous than people realize, many plants in horticulture do not resemble their actual namesake populations in the wild for this reason, but also many populations in nature also do not resemble the species the taxonomists claim they are. As time goes on I will address this further in relation to the taxonomy and the molecular data (probably in a Blog format) For now however I'd like to call attention to the existence of hybrids that many people are not aware of as having been made or even being possible.
Thank you for your time.
These papers list some interesting crosses:
ROWLEY , G.D. (1994) Spontaneous bigeneric hy-
brids in Cactaceae. Bradleya 12: 2-7.
ROWLEY , G.D. (2004a) Intergeneric hybrids in Cac-
taceae - 2004 update. Brit. Cact. Succ. J. 22(2):
64-65, ill.
ROWLEY , G.D. (2004b) Intergeneric hybrids in Cac-
taceae - an update. Cact. Syst. Init. No. 18: 11-
28, ills.
This includes Cleistocactus × Echinocereus and Echinopsis × Echinocereus, as well as Echinopsis × Selenicereus. More if you consider Harrisia different than Echinopsis, I don't.
In fact I use a convention found here: http://www.cactusinhabitat.org/index.php?p=booklet and here:
http://www.cactusinhabitat.org/index.php?p=generi
So many of the intergeneric hybrids involving Echinopsis and other related plants are to me just interpsecific crosses in Echinopsis. This includes Oreocereus as a species of Echinopsis, something I will likely discuss later when I get to the topic of the taxonomy.
In the paper A putative Oreocereus x Echinopsis hybrid from southern Bolivia
Urs Eggli & Mario Giorgetta 2013
Link: https://giorgetta.ch/files/pdf/eggli_et ... hybrid.pdf
Several interesting hybrids between genera are listed in Table one.
This is from the appendix to table one:
Hybrids with one parent from outside tribe Trichocereeae:
Cleistocactus × Echinocereus: × Cleistonocereus (Rowley 2004a)
Echinopsis × Aporocactus (now syn. of Disocactus): ×Aporechinopsis → ×Disonopsis (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis × Echinocereus: ×Echinocereopsis (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis × Epiphyllum: ×Echinophyllum (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis × Nopalxochia (now syn. of Disocactus): ×Echinopalxochia → ×Disonopsis (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis (as Chamaecereus / as Lobivia) × Parodia (as Notocactus): ×Chamecactus = ×Notolobivia →×Echinoparodia (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis × Selenicereus: ×Seleniopsis (Rowley 2004b)
Echinopsis (as Lobivia) × Sulcorebutia (Ritter 1981): ×Weinganopsis Rowley 1994
Harrisia (as Eriocereus) × Cereus (Ritter 1981): ×Harricereus (Rowley 1994)
Harrisia × Selenicereus: ×Selenirisia (Rowley 2004b)
Cleistocactus × Echinocereus is interesting, though I consider Cleistocactus to be Echinopsis but Echinocereus are known to be the dwarf forms of the Pachycereoid cacti.
Many people are unaware of the ability of cacti to cross a little bit more freely than most other known plants. One of the reasons for this is that some unlikely crosses only succeed on occasion. In some families hundreds of thousands of crosses between different species are needed to achieve success because of the low likelyhood of success. If a person tried only 60,000 crosses and they all failed, they might form the erroneous opinion that the cross is impossible. In fact this type of limited thinking is widespread and after only a few failures many people actually give up on such things as interspecific and intergeneric hybridization with cacti.
This is without considering the use of methods such as auxin application to prevent fruit abortion and cut-style pollination, and other methods that people use to assist this type of hybridization.
Another objection to this type of work is based on plant racism, where the idea of pure species verses mixed species has in many ways mirrored the topic of race in other social arenas. The influence of the Nazi cactus taxonomist Ritter may also play a hidden role here, but that is another topic.
However recent molecular evidence has also indicated that over time cacti have frequently crossed with one another and that many of the species we now know actually arose as combinations of distinct forms from distinct populations. In other words racial purity rarely exists in nature and then it tends to be associated with inbreeding and defects related to this. That pure species people harp on and on about only arose because it had different ancestors.
Likewise positive sense heterosis in cacti (aka hybrid vigor) and their hybrids shows that nature offers rich rewards for hybridization,where rather than suffer from increased sterility and poor growth as is often found in interspecific crosses in other families (Capsicum has good examples of this) the novel hybrid cacti often grow faster, larger, healthier and are highly fertile, though a percentage of their F2 and F3 offspring often do run into issues do to inbreeding defects, however it is not unusual for a percentage of the F2 and F3 cacti to resemble a new species quite distinct from either parent as well. In fact this is one of the known mechanisms of hybrid speciation in cacti.
I have a specific interest in hybrid cacti (pun intended) and am looking for examples of actual photographs of Intergeneric crosses as well as peoples experiences with them.
On this note I will also share an anecdote. I once met a man who grew Pediocacti here in Utah. He had a yard full of them.
He was the biggest supplier to Mesa Garden at that time of Pediocactus.
They all flowered together and he didn't isolate them whatsoever and he literally sold the seed labeled as pure species, when it was open pollinated. I asked him about reproductive isolation and he said he did not think they even crossed. They do, but not only this, he had different forms of Pediocactus simpsonii co-flowering and for him to believe that these did not cross and to sell his seeds to various companies as pure, was less than ideal. Because of this type of thing many of the seeds available as Pediocactus in the US are not actually true to type. This also played a role in some of the Pediocactus seeds on the market having issues with germination.
These plants are much more promiscuous than people realize, many plants in horticulture do not resemble their actual namesake populations in the wild for this reason, but also many populations in nature also do not resemble the species the taxonomists claim they are. As time goes on I will address this further in relation to the taxonomy and the molecular data (probably in a Blog format) For now however I'd like to call attention to the existence of hybrids that many people are not aware of as having been made or even being possible.
Thank you for your time.