The Trichocereus peruvianus clones Rosei 1 & Rosei 2 are among the most interesting Trichocereus cultivars out there. Both are very glaucous with a dark blue skin. They have yellow or dark brown spines that often have black tips. The old spine growth looks very gray and the areoles are covered with very fine, white wool.
Trichocereus ‘Rosei 2’ was part of the legendary Australian Fields collection. Both Trichocereus rosei clones were brought to Australia by Harry Blossfeld, who was one of the first importers of cacti. . Prier donated some pics of the original mother plant at Fields and I am extremely glad we have them on the site.
“Rosei2” is certainly not a real species name and belongs into the context of Trichocereus peruvianus / Echinopsis peruviana. It is very similar to the dark blue Trichocereus peruvianus plants coming from Matucana and it´s possible that it was originally collected there. Either as seeds or as a live cutting. The spine color can be very variable and this clone is known to produce massive spines, which can be seen on some of the photos.
This plant is one of the most popular and famed plants in the Australian Fields collection. This plant is a beautiful textbook specimen of the often-misunderstood species Trichocereus validus (Monviella).
It is still unknown from where Robert Fields sourced his plants, but I am positive we can add some more information soon. There were two different Validus plants growing at the (now defunct) Fields collection and I was lucky enough to get some photos of both plants by SAB member Terrapin! (Thanks again, mate! :-D)
If you want to learn more about the species Trichocerus validus, check out the page about it here: Trichocereus validus
Fields Validus SHED
Here is another plant that was growing at the Fields collection. Those photos came from Terrapin as well and I am happy to have them around:
Here are some photos showing the Fields Validus clones being grown by other Australian members;
Photos: Jordan Calleija
Trichocereus.com.au
Member GETAFIX
Trichocereus validus from Shed and Garden (Jon Nichols)
Sharxx Blue is a short spinedTrichocereus peruvianus clone that was named after SAB Member Sharxx. It originated from the well known DAWSONS cactus collection and was distributed and named by PD (another SAB member). It probably is some kind of Trichocereus peruvianus from Matucana, very much like ICARO DNA, the Los Gentiles, Rosei or the many other Matucana Perus.
The plant is extremely blue and glaucous. Overall, Sharxx is one of my all-time favorite Trichocereus clones and it’s a very popular among Trichocereus breeders.
This clone is sometimes available from Australian growers that gift or trade away cuttings every now and then. If you are interested in a cutting, you might try to make a posting at the SAB forum. There also are growers that use it to produce Trichocereus hybrids. This year was the first year that Misplant offered some crosses with this clone. It is also available from Trichocereus.com.au, who donated the pics below.
Just like the other J-hybrids, this clone comes from Cactus Country in Strathmerton, Australia. They were named after the owner Jim, who built an amazing collection filled with beautiful Trichos.
Most people call this an Echinopsis pachanoi, but I do not agree. The distance between the areoles and the flower indicate a Trichocereus bridgesii hybrid. If not as the mother, then as the father.The clone clone was propagated and distributed by SAB forum member PD, who still uses the J hybrids for hybrid cultivation. All of them, including the J2 are hybrids.
J1 = Trichocereus peruvianus / pachanoi hybrid. Apart from the long spines, it looks like a Tr. pachanoi.
J2 = Trichocereus bridgesii hybrid or hybrid between Trichocereus pachanoi and Trichocereus bridgesii.
Omar (Trichocereus / Echinopsis) PC Predominant Cultivar
OMAR is a Trichocereus pachanoi clone that was most likely brought into circulation by the SAB nursery. The plant was also offered by the SAB shop, where it was sold alongside a similar hybrid called ALF. That leaves room for speculation and it´s possible that both plants (OMAR & ALF) were grown from the same seed pod or at least, were representatives of the same regional type. I personally have trouble looking at OMAR without seen anything but the well known PC Trichocereus clone, which could have some connection to Trichocereus riomizquensis from Bolivia. PC is short for predominate cultivar, or predominant cultivar. The name was brought up from various American breeders and authors, who described it as the most common Trichocereus clone throughout North America. The clone is widely distributed all over Australia as well.
OMAR has the same yellowish look that almost all PC cuttings had in common. Besides, the areoles and the small stump spines are really typical. And on top of that, it has the same type of flower.
Again, I did not have the chance to observe this plant over the course of a few years, but what I´ve seen on some of the pics looks a lot like the predominate cultivar. It might be PC offspring, or a plant that represents the same regional form as the PC Trichocereus, but which is a different clone.
BRUCE is a beautiful Trichocereus bridgesii aka Echinopsis lageniformiswith very broad ribs and a funny spination. Just like many other, it is a Trichocereus hybrid of Australian origin. Because of the broad ribs, this plant tends to have relatively few ribs. Most plants I´ve seen had between 4 and 6 ribs. The mother plant goes back to the SAB member BLACKDRAGON, who had a giant monster of this amazing plant growing in his garden. He also managed to get it to flower and the flower was relatively typical for a Tr.bridgesii.
This clone is suspected to be somewhat related to the Tr. bridgesii clone EILEEN, that was growing in front of reshroomED´s house. Personally, I would not be surprised if both were grown from similar or the same seed lots. But that´s just speculation and I have yet to hear more detailed information on the background. The plant is also known to show a “melting” look from time to time, which indicates that this is (at least partially) mutated somehow. BRUCE comes from South Australia and is also very similar to the clone MBN95/ SUPER BRIDGE, which more or less lost as I do not know of anyone who has that plant with an intact label.
BRUCE: COPYRIGHT: GOT
Where to buy cuttings or seeds of BRUCE (Trichocereus bridgesii)?
BRUCE is one of the rarer hybrids from Australia and I know of no breeder that is currently breeding with it. I know of various hybrids involving Bruce and it will take a few more years until we see the results of these Trichocereus bridgesii seeds.
If you enjoy our work with the database you might want to send in some photos to improve it. Also, feel free to join our Trichocereus Facebook group or follow us on Instagram.
Yowie is an Australian Trichocereus clone that came from the Fields collected. It probably came to Australia during one of the first expeditions by Harry Blossfeld, who funded his trips by selling plants to cactus collectors.
Yowie is a very cool and popular Trichocereus with a unique spination that consists of two parallel Spines per Areole. It also has very pronounced ribs and looks very much like an Ecuadorian Trichocereus pachanoi. Now let me add some information about where this clone came from.
This clone originated in Yarrawonga Victoria. The SAB member Marsha (who was previously known by the username “Yowie” led PD to the Fields collection, where the mother plant of this clone grew. The clone is easily recognized by the pair of spines, that makes it very different from other clones that belong to this species. However, similar plants can be found all across Australia (and the world), so it´s not really sure if it is actually a clone or just represents a local type. I know similar (and almost identical) Pachanois, especially from Ecuador and it may be very well possible that they are not genetically identical to the Yowie clone. If you encounter similar plants, you can just test it by trying to breed it with a verified Yowie. If you are not sure about the ID of your plant, feel free to post in on SAB or our Trichocereus Facebook Group!
Trichocereus macrogonus ‘Fields’, also known as Fields Macrogonus is a Trichocereus that was originally part of the legendary Fields collection in Australia. The collection was founded in the early days of cactus collecting. Most of the plants from Fields, including the Fields Macro, were brought to Australia through Harry Blossfeld´s South America expedition. This was long before all the import restrictions on plants and cacti were put in place. The garden is now owned by Robert Fields, who took over the garden from his father, the person who began with the collection.
Now back to the history of the Fields Macro. Harry Blossfeld, who was a field botanist, offered some cactus shares to finance his 1935 South America Expedition and Mr. Field was one of the people who took the chance to invest in it. In return, he received some very cool cacti that grew in what is known as the “Field´s Collection”. In addition, Mr. Field seems to have bought some plants or seeds from Friedrich Ritter, because some of their plants were (at least officially) discovered by Ritter, such as Trichocereus knuthianus.
This Fields Macro, also known as Trichocereus macrogonus ‘Fields’, is one of the oldest confirmed specimens of Trichocereus macrogonus that are labeled as such. Of course there are still plants around from the early days of cactus taxonomy, but the majority of them have lost their labels.
At the time of the expeditions, Britton and Rose had just described their Trichocereus species Trichocereus pachanoi, Trichocereus bridgesii and Trichocereus peruvianus and Trichocereus macrogonus was still a very well known species, even more well-known than Trichocereus peruvianus.
There are a lot of plants labeled Trichocereus macrogonus on the market today, but the great confusion surrounding the name makes it very hard to differentiate between the ones that were originally called Trichocereus macrogonus and the ones that modern nurseries or seed collectors just identified themselves. On the commercial seed market, you can get all kinds of different species under the name Trichocereus macrogonus and plants from the commercial market are generally unfit to be used as standard for Trichocereus macrogonus.
Most Trichocereus macrogonus strains from Peru usually fall into the species Trichocereus peruvianus, which is why I think both names are at least partially synonymous.
In addition, the original description of T.macrogonus was very incomplete. There is no country of origin, no good photos from the earliest examples of Cereus macrogonus, no Herbarium specimen, no early flower description etc.
From the time when Britton and Rose described T. peruvianus, the original Trichocereus macrogonus was never found again and today no one really knows which plant was originally described in the description. And because of that, an early example of Trichocereus macrogonus that goes back to the 1930s is a great thing! If you are interested in the history of Trichocereus Macrogonus, check out my article here:
Personally, I think the Fields Macrogonus looks very much like a Matucana Peruvianus such as Icaro DNA or Los Gentiles. This particular form of Trichocereus peruvianus has brown spines and is very close to the overall description of Cereus peruvianus.
Pictures: By Rodni! Thank you very much!
Photos of FIELDS MACROGONUS
Fields Macrogonus
Fields Macrogonus
Fields Macrogonus
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The Australian SAB Clone ROD is a rather rare Ecuadorian Echinopsis pachanoi.
This plant comes from the type locality of the species in Ecuador. You can recognize Ecuadorian Pachs by the color epidermis and the unique areole shape. In addition, they sometimes have longer spines than the Peruvian ones, but this does not apply to this clone. “Rod” has very strong V-notches above the areoles. Old growth can have a dark blue/green color (as seen on the pic here) while some young growth is typically grass green.
Flowers: The flowers are white. On the pic below, you can see the interesting white hairs that are covering the flower buds. Unfortunately I could not measure the flowers and the plant but I will hopefully add this kind of info later on.
Origin: This clone could potentially be an early KK339, which ended up being very close to type. It was probably named after the SAB member Rod, who originally brought this clone into cultivation and passed it around among the other members.
J3 is one of the unlabeled hybrids that Jim Hall of Cactus Country grew. There is not really much known about this clone, and the parents are lost unfortunately. Most people that grow them label them “Peruvianus”. Nonetheless, the plant looks like it could also have Bridgesii relatives.I am pretty confident that there is a Trichocereus bridgesii / Echinopsis lageniformis somewhere in J3´s family tree, but I doubt that it´s actually a botanically pure one plant.
Those three pics were donated by Michael Stillman and I will add a lot more to the database. All clones from cactus country, also known as J clones, are pretty rare and there only are a few of them in cultivation.
The following pics show hybrids in which this clone was used as a father.
SUPER PEDRO x J3. Though the latter was only the father, the offspring is very similar to it and only shows very little similarity to the Trichocereus scopulicola hybrid Super Pedro. Definitely an interesting plant.
This plant shows Trichocereus pachanoi x J3 and looks very much like the father too. Despite the fact that plants often look more like the mother. However, it seems to have very dominant genes when being used as father.
Both Rosei 1 and Rosei 2 are among the most popular clones in the Trichocereus community. Just like so many great plants, they originated from the Fields collection in Victoria. The name was used in very old cactus literature to label a certain, very blue types of Trichocereus peruvianus / Echinopsis peruviana. This name was mostly applied to the same plants that we label as Trichocereus macrogonus today. The name is mostly synonymous with certain forms of Trichocereus peruvianus.
The name Trichocereus rosei was never an officially described species and that´s why we count both Rosei clones as commercial varieties. Both clones are part of the Fields collection and came to Australia in the early days of cactus trading. Mr. Fields was one of the supporters of Harry Blossfeld´s South America expedition and got the plants as reward for the support.
Despite the fact that Rosei 1 and Rosei 2 are actually clones, you can find very similar specimens in nature. In particular, we see a striking resemblance to the forms of Trichocereus peruvianus from Matucana (e.g. the Icaro DNA strain, Sharxx Blue etc). However, there are also similar plants in other parts of Peru and we probably won’t be able to find out where exactly they came from. In the future, I will have a look at old cactus catalogs to see if there might be some old seed lists that include the collection sites. The only information that is certain is that both clones are from South America, but that´s a pretty big area.
Rosei 1 has shorter spines than Rosei 2 and usually has a more glaucous/blue epidermis. But because the environment can have a huge influence on the look of a plant, I doubt that this works reliably.
