Trichocereus ‘Zeus’ (Echinopsis)

Parents: unknown. Zeus looks very much like an Ecuadorian Trichocereus.

Origin of the Plant: The ZEUS clone is a rare clone that spread throughout the collections thanks to SAB members like Aplantis and Misplant. It´s originally from Egypt and was brought into circulation by SAB member Philocacti. Philocacti found the clone 14 years ago in Egypt. There aren´t many Trichocereus to be found there, which is why it was a lucky accident that he even found it. The other ones that Philocacti was able to find were a Trichocereus taquimbalensis, a Trichocereus cuzcoensis and a Melted wax version of Trichocereus bridgesii.

In the past years, Philocacti sent a few cuttings to people overseas and this has lead to a good number of breeders who are actively breeding with it. Though there currently are only very few cuttings available, it´s very likely that we´ll see this plant a lot more in the near future. If you are interested in the ZEUS Trichocereus clone, I´d suggest you to make a posting on the SAB forum or our Trichocereus Facebook Group! You can also try to ask the member Philocacti directly though I do not know if he currently has any more of them available. There currently are no seeds available of this type, but I will try to get some as soon as anyone of our breeders succeeds in crossing it with some other clones.

The Reason for naming the Clone: The ZEUS clone was named after Philocacti´s dog, who lived with him for 13 years and always was his best friend & safe keeper in very hard times. And when I say “hard times”, I really mean that. I guess it´s safe to say that without the emotional support of his dog, Philo might not be here today. I am usually rather hesitant to name clones, but in this case it´s very appropriate to do so because there is a lot of personal history attached to the name. In addition, the plant is a very recognizable Ecuadorian Pachanoi that deserves to be named. Well yeah, I really hope that this clone will become a very widespread one, because there is a lot of positive karma attached to it.

The Zeus clone has some very distinct V-Notches. The color of its epidermis changes between a dark green to a very glaucous blue. It usually has very short spines and the older growth can be almost spineless. I´ll add more info about the measurements as soon as we were able to measure the spines, the distance between the areoles, the diameter of the areoles and the number of spines per areole.

I currently do not know how the flower looks but I´ll add that info later too.