Trichocereus angelesii, also known as Echinopsis angelesii or Echinopsis angelesiae, was originally described by Friedrich Ritter as a white flowering variety of Trichocereus strigosus / Trichocereus strigonus, until Kiesling publicized it under the name Trichocereus angelesii.
Check out two photos of Trichocereus strigonus in comparison
The flower of Trichocereus angelesii
The flower of Echinopsis angelesii is white and 12-24 centimeters long. Trichocereus angelesii is a day flowering / diurnal species with clear visual similarity to Trichocereus strigonus. The spines, fruits and seeds are pretty much indistinguishable from the ones of Trichocereus strigosus, which makes it nearly impossible to identify the plant unless you find it at the original type location. Trichocereus angelesii, aka Echinopsis angelesii, usually has 14-22 ribs . In comparison to this, Trichocereus huascha has 12-15 ribs.
The typus location is Famatima in the provence La Rioja, what makes it likely that it is synonymous with the commercial name Trichocereus famatinensis. It is also closely related to the plant that Ritter called Trichocereus callianthus. This plant was originally sold by Ritter as FR999, which was still labeled as Trichocereus huascha back then.
Kiesling´s description gives Darwinia in Argentina as the typus location and it´s not clear whether or not those plants were actually the same.
Buy Trichocereus angelesii / Buy seeds of T. angelesii
It´s a rare species that you only get rarely, but classic Kaktus nurseries like Kakteen Haage or Uhlig Kakteen might have some of them available. If you don’t have the chance to collect them at one of the aforementioned locations, you will probably not run into it very oftenly. There are also some older plants that you can find on the commercial market, and these are usually labeled as T. huascha or Trichocereus strigonus. White flowering Trichocereus huascha might very well be a mislabeled Trichocereus angelesii.
If you enjoyed this article, also make sure to check out some of our other articles. For example the archive pages on Echinopsis macrogona, Echinopsis peruviana or Echinopsis valida.
Also join our Trichocereus Facebook group at https://facebook.com/groups/trichocereus
