An Eriosyce, I believe

[fanaticactus]

In trying to straighten up the mess in the GH after this winter, I find this cactus lost its tag somewhere. It's fairly wrinkled from drying out over the winter but apparently is surviving, judging from the light green at the apex and the new coloring of the young spines. I'm fairly confident it's an Eriosyce but have no idea which one. In order to put a name to it, I had to consult my last few orders from last year. By process of elimination, I've decided this must be one I ordered from M2G with the name "Neoporteria carneoflora". However, since this name does not exist in any taxonomy I can find, I can't find a current synonym for it. Does anyone recognize it? It's about 5 or 6 inches tall. I love dealing with Miles but sometimes his taxonomy throws me for a loop! And what's going on in the last picture with those ribs?

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[phil_SK]

Yes, paucicostata, I think.

[DaveW]

Neochilenia carneoflora is a Backeberg/Killian nomen nudum for a random seedling selected from a batch of Ritter's Thelocephala seed I believe. Your plant is certainly no Thelocephala, but a plant of the E. paucicostata group as Phil says.

http://galerie-kakteen-piltz.de/Theloce ... n..jpg.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Evidently Donald & Rowley made the combination Neoporteria reichei f. carneoflora for it:-

http://www.llifle.com/Encyclopedia/CACT ... arneoflora" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[fanaticactus]

Thanks so much, Dave and Phil. Seems as if you've done much more analysis of the history of taxonomy than I. It gets very confusing. The tag will be "Eriosyce paucicostata" for now with maybe a "ssp" or "v" to follow.

[DaveW]

Originally Ritter published the grey bodied form as Pyrrhocactus paucicostatus:-

http://cinerea.nomaki.jp/nn/pic/Neochi_ ... 05Belg.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And the green bodied form as P. paucicostatus v. viridis:-

http://cinerea.nomaki.jp/nn/pic/Neochi_ ... 5RMF60.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://cinerea.nomaki.jp/nn/i_neoc.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

But both forms are now usually sunk into paucicostata since it is known the body colour is variable and even reddish bodied ones are found.

http://mv-darkroom.deviantart.com/art/E ... -304924423" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

We don't see the original really greyish bodied form Frau Winter originally put out from Ritter's seed in the 1960's on sale in the UK very much now. Most E. paucicostata's seem to be the green bodied form.

[fanaticactus]

Thanks, Dave, for the further history of a confusing lineage and the illustrative links. Now that I look at our ("CactiGuide's" recognized) names on this site, would Eriosyce taltalensis ssp paucicostata be more accurate and up-to-date?

[CactusFanDan]

Eriosyce taltalensis ssp. paucicostata is how I usually refer to this one.

[Eutow_Intermedium]

Neoporteria , Eriosyce Paucicostata

=^-^=

Yup !

[phil_SK]

Thanks, Dave, for the further history of a confusing lineage and the illustrative links. Now that I look at our ("CactiGuide's" recognized) names on this site, would Eriosyce taltalensis ssp paucicostata be more accurate and up-to-date?

It was Kattermann, in his Eriosyce: The Genus Revised and Amplified (1994) who first placed this as a subspecies of taltalensis. This was used as the basis of the Eriosyce nomenclature in the 1998 CITES Cactaceae Checklist (2nd Ed.) which was used (I think) by Anderson as the basis of his Cactus Family book, which Daiv used for the species guide on this site. It was Ferryman in 2003 (Cactaceae Systematics Initiatives 16) who returned it to species level (in Eriosyce for the first time) but as I haven't seen this publication (my run starts at 17) I don't know what he said about his reasons. There isn't really any explanation in Kattermann's book, apart from a distribution map showing its proximity to other subspecies.

[DaveW]

It's just the old "Splitters" v. "Lumpers" situation. Ritter was considered a bit of a splitter by modern classifiers (but not as bad as Backeberg or Karel Knize) and collecting commercially the more "species" he found the greater the sales to collectors. However like all things the pendulum of classification usually swings the other way eventually and "Lumping" became the new religion, with anybody not agreeing declared a heretic. Many former species (and even genera) were reduced to synonymy under earlier published taxa. These swings are usually overdone and the excess "Lumping" or "Splitting" usually gets dismantled again to arrive at a sensible happy medium, as seems to be happening again.

The problem always occurs if the plants form a cline, gradually changing geographically and then it becomes a question of where you divide the line into species, or do you consider it as all one very variable species? That argument has gone on ever since plant classifivation started and is unlikely to ever be resolved.

http://www.cactus-art.biz/note-book/Dic ... _cline.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Predating Kattemann was the Ritter lumping of what was Backeberg's Neochilenia and Horridocactus into Pyrrhocactus. Before then the Chilean and Argentinian plants had been kept separate. Later came Donald & Rowley's Reunion of Neoporteria in 1966 where they almost did a Katterman by lumping everything into Neoporteria, but left out Eriosyce because being an older name that would have made so many name changes using an unfamiliar genus for familiar plants. Fred Kattermann later "bit the bullet" and lumped everything into Eriosyce.

However I have been told some collectors in the field do not think Pyrrhocactus sensu stricto should be in Eriosyce at all, so there will always be dissenters for any classification.

[phil_SK]

Are paucicostata and taltalensis in a cline?

[fanaticactus]

I find all these contributions to be very informative reading and they're giving me quite an education re: taxonomy. I guess there's no bucking the historical trends, but it somehow doesn't seem right that specialists in the field can readjust the entire system based on their own opinions. With all the modern day scientific analysis of cactus DNA being done, can't something more definitive be done to resolve such a perplexing situation? I know I'm showing my naïveté, but my personality (some might call it OCD?) wants things to be clearcut and orderly.

[DaveW]

I was just going to post this yesterday and CactGuide went down and has only come back today:-

I have heard it said DNA Sequencing is not much good at sorting out plants at species level, just indicating their lines of descent. However that opinion may be changing:-

http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... ribed-dna/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I suppose it depends how you define a cline Phil. Whether you consider it must be one continuous unbroken line of plants, or if there can be limited spaces in between individual groups caused by local extinction, or even by the hand of man, but still be considered a gradually changing line?

Personally I would not consider E. taltalensis as close to E. paucicostata as E. pucicostata is to E. glaucesens, E. floccosa and E. neohankeana?

However far more work really needs doing on this group. From Ritter's perspective it was fairly clear, E. taltalensis and E. transiens (formally part of his P. rupicolus) had purple flowers and most of the others in the area whitish ones.

Unfortunately Fanaticactus plants don't fit neatly into man made pigeon holes but can vary considerably within a single population. There are even questions about how accurate some DNA Sequencing was, or at least the methods chosen, or the selection of the plants and their identification, plus the interpretation placed upon the results obtained.

[CactusFanDan]

I find all these contributions to be very informative reading and they're giving me quite an education re: taxonomy. I guess there's no bucking the historical trends, but it somehow doesn't seem right that specialists in the field can readjust the entire system based on their own opinions. With all the modern day scientific analysis of cactus DNA being done, can't something more definitive be done to resolve such a perplexing situation? I know I'm showing my naïveté, but my personality (some might call it OCD?) wants things to be clearcut and orderly.

I don't think anyone's got around to doing a phylogenetic analysis of Eriosyce yet. Lack of funding is probably an issue. Even then no hobbyists would pay any attention to the results.

[fanaticactus]

I find all these contributions to be very informative reading and they're giving me quite an education re: taxonomy. I guess there's no bucking the historical trends, but it somehow doesn't seem right that specialists in the field can readjust the entire system based on their own opinions. With all the modern day scientific analysis of cactus DNA being done, can't something more definitive be done to resolve such a perplexing situation? I know I'm showing my naïveté, but my personality (some might call it OCD?) wants things to be clearcut and orderly.

I don't think anyone's got around to doing a phylogenetic analysis of Eriosyce yet. Lack of funding is probably an issue. Even then no hobbyists would pay any attention to the results.

You are undoubtedly right, Dan. I didn't realize all this investigation and analysis had to be funded. I thought folks did it just because they were interested and liked the hobby.