Taxonony Eriosyce calderana/ E. talt. ssp. pygmaea

[Jens]

Hello, I was trying to separate Eriosyce calderana and Eriosyce taltalensis ssp. pygmaea from the New Cactus Lexicon in my mind.
These photos show what is put down in the text volume. The type locality and description basically match the taxa by F. Ritter (Pyrrhocactus calderanus and Pyrrhocactus pygmaeus). But the concept of these taxa in the NCL is wider than just these two Ritters species.
So I asked myself where is the line to distinguish between these two new taxa?

Chile Karte 2014 März14.jpg (90.09 KiB) Viewed 2409 times

[DaveW]

Hi Jens,

Part of the problem is Fred Katterman lumped a lot of Ritter's species. Also not sure he always identified all Ritter's plants correctly, for instance his pilispinus is probably Ritter's pulchellus. Not sure but I may have Ritter's original descriptions somewhere. The brief latin diagnoses were often published in Taxon before his books came out, though would have thought same as in his books.

See:-

http://www.suculentas.es/phpBB3/viewtop ... =20&t=8088

You have Hutchisons original description of taltalensis that I sent you being the red flowered plant. As I recall without looking both pygmaeus and calderanus have white inner petals. Whether you consider some of Ritter's plants are worthy of specific names or are just local forms is a matter of opinion, such as whether taltalensis has red and white flowered forms and therefore depends on your concept of species.

If you look at those Powerpoint files numbers 8-13 of Fred's you have you will see his concept of these species is rather different to Ritter's. Obviously transiens also seems to be close to taltalensis too.

[Jens]

Yes, Kattermann lumped all smaller Taltalensis- assoociated plants with straigter spines into E. taltalensis ssp. taltalensis v. pygmaea and all those with wavy spines from the more nortern localities into E. taltalensis ssp. pilispina.
I found this to be a rather straight forward aproach to keep those groups apart.
I tought this splitting into E. calderana and E. talt. ssp. pygmaea is rather vague acording to the description given in the NCL.
In my view the NCL version to look at the plants is more like a gentlemans agreement without written down criteria where to put the plants that Ritter callled Pyrrrhocactus pulchellus , P. pilispinus and P. transiens, P. calderanus , P. pygmaeus , P. intermedius

(resembeling Py. pulchelllus)

(resembeling Py. pilispinus)

(resembeling Py. transiens)

(resembeling Py. calderanus)

(resembeling Py. pygmaeus)

Juan Acosta and Florecia Senoret put it
like this in their new book /file (p.64 and p.96 in the pdf file)
Calderanus : Py. pulchellus , pilispius , calderanus
Taltalensis ssp. pygmaea: Py. transiens , pygmaeus , intermedius
http://www.corma.cl/_file/material/cact ... s_2013.pdf

[DaveW]

The NCL treatment of Eriosysce seems to be the Katterman version modified by Roger Ferryman where they disagreed on certain species. Will have to check with Roger regarding calderana and pygmaea.

Thanks for the link to Florencia's book, I did not know they were going to put it online.

[Jens]

Hi Dave, that would be great if you could ask RMF how they intended it to be seperated and you could perhaps ask where they put it down , too?

[Milan]

These are seedlings from seeds that I have collected just accross Panamericana from the beach of Balneario Portofino. Nice to confirm my opinion that they are P. pulchellus. The head which bore the fruit was about half the current size of the seedlings.

IMG_1990.JPG (176.14 KiB) Viewed 2328 times

[Jens]

Nice plants Milan!
They look like Pyrrhocacatus pulchellus (Ritter), Eriosyce talalensis ssp. pilispina (Kattermann), ?Eriosyce calderana? (Ferryman).

The color of the spines in Py. pulchellus can vary from light yellow to blackish too.
This pictured plant is of comercial origin so...not as reliable as your habitat seedlings, Milan.

[DaveW]

The problem as always is identification. Different collectors find the same plant but identify it differently. I suppose you can only really go on the locality they were collected from, but then probably some of the original localities were vague pre GPS and even these days with GPS are often fudged to prevent other collectors finding them. That's nothing new, it has been going on since the early days of the fossil hunters to safeguard their personal sites. Also at given a locality sometimes the different species can be found at different altitudes, therefore a lower altitude form can be collected and named in error for one that in fact occurs higher up.

If we also throw natural variation into the mix the situation becomes even more complex. Plants unfortunately don't always fall into the neat compartments classifiers want.

As said Fred Kattemann's E. pilispinus is what most others identify as E. pulchellus. I have a plant from Fred's seed as his E. pilispinus and one from Roger Ferryman as E. pulchellus and they are the same.

[Milan]

These are from seeds which I collected the next day at Punta Achurra, north of Chanaral. The Pyrrhocacti (5 in total) grew on gray volcanic rock while there were mumerous Copiapoa serpentisulcata on wheathered granite. I have identified them as Pyrrhocactus intermedius but I may be wrong so other suggestions are welcome. The seedlins are slower than P. pulchellus.

IMG_1972.JPG (144.04 KiB) Viewed 2294 times

[Jens]

Personally I find it hard to tell apart Pyrrhocactus pygmaeus , P. intermedius P. calderanus , and P. scoparius (Ritter).
Maybe P. intermedius grows a little bigger and has darker spines - but that is not enough to make it a species of its own IMO.

I bought some plants of Py. intermedius from Prof. Diers in Germany, which were cultivated from Ritter material a long time ago.

Eriosyce taltalensis v. pygmaea (Py. scoparius) 2012 Januar29.jpg (98.78 KiB) Viewed 2274 times

So lumping these was quite ok I think. But there remains the problem placing them in either Eriosyce calderana or Eriosyce talt. ssp. pygmaea (Ferryman)