Other Trichocereus
Tacaquirensis
Grown herePartially documentedTacaquirensis is grown as a heavily armed, large-growing : nine or ten big ribs, oval white up to an inch long, and thick spines that emerge red and age to black at over two inches. Plants are described reaching about fifteen feet tall and six inches thick. The wiki page is all description and no history - no collector, no locality and no account of how the name entered circulation.Reported, but not confirmed.
- red-to-black spines
- 9-10 ribs
- huge white areoles
- very tall
- dark green
At a glance
Species
Parents
No source names a mother or a father for this one.
Origin
We have read the sources we hold and none of them says where this plant came from.
no source says whether it is seed-grown or a cutting line
In the yard
cutting · $90.00
Family line
No source in this library records a cross for Tacaquirensis. Nobody names a mother or a father for it, and no other entry here names it as a parent.
The longer version
The reference that reports that treatment also argues against it, holding the two apart and saying most plants sold under this name are in fact the other one. The treatment is what the standing index carries; the dissent is recorded beside it rather than averaged into it.Reported, but not confirmed.
A Californian nursery records the same confusion from the selling end: a plant sold for decades by two named nurseries under the taquimbalensis label, thought to come from a named private collection, is now being re-sold under this name instead, and the nursery says the change has made it popular again. The same nursery separately traces its own plant under this name to a large wholesale grower.Too little stands behind this for us to confirm it.This is recorded as what the trade calls things and how that changes — not as a determination of what either plant is, which is not something a seller's catalogue can settle.Reported by one source, and not corroborated anywhere else.
What the record holds
The wiki page records no finder, locality or naming history - it is a description of the plant only.Reported, but not confirmed.The field record is not empty, though. A compiled index of collectors' own numbered field lists carries 120 separate collections under this species name, made by thirteen collectors in the Tarija, Potosí and Chuquisaca departments of Bolivia between 2270 and 3612 metres, the earliest of them Friedrich Ritter's and dated 1953.Reported by one source, and not corroborated anywhere else.That is a record of where the species has been found, not of where the plant standing in this yard under the name came from.Reported, but not confirmed.
Character
Not documented yet.
- nearly smooth to heavily spined: this one leans strongly towards heavily spined, read from the spines line below.
Not documented yet.
- Skin
- Dark green, and it keeps that colour as it grows.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. A dark green body holding its colour as it grows is unremarkable in Trichocereus.
- Ribs
- Usually nine or ten, very large, with a deep V-shaped notch between widely spaced areoles.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Nine or ten broad ribs with deep notches between spaced areoles is an ordinary Trichocereus form.
- Spines
- Heavy.Reported by one source, and not corroborated anywhere else.They come out red and darken to black, commonly passing two inches, thick, strong and not easily knocked off.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Stout spines emerging red and darkening with age, well over two inches, is normal for the genus.
- Growth habit
- Fat.Checked and judged by our house botanist; no outside source states it. A thick-stemmed plant is entirely ordinary for this group.Tall and heavy, often reaching six inches across and fifteen feet high.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Both the girth and the height given fall within the size range these columns reach.
- Notes
- Areoles: white and oval, taking up a lot of the , with some over an inch long.One source states this, and our house botanist has checked it. Large white oval areoles crowding the rib are within the range big Trichocereus show.
What the sources say
Do not confuse this with Taquimbalensis, a name that looks almost the same in writing.Reported by 2 independent sources; we have not seen it ourselves.This library's own older note said our sources had nothing on this name and that the wiki page was the first record of any kind for it. Neither is true any more, and both are withdrawn here rather than left standing. An earlier note also called Taquimbalensis a different and separately documented name. That is no longer accurate either: the current treatment files it as a subspecies of this very species, so the two are close relatives under one name rather than unrelated labels — though a buyer should still expect them to look different. The name itself turns out to be a place: several of the collections in the field record are made at Tacaquira in the Nor Cinti province of Chuquisaca. What the field record does not do is say how the word entered the hobby's trade in , which is the part the wiki page was silent about.Reported by one source, and not corroborated anywhere else.
Related names
Keep exploring
Cultivar histories in this hobby are passed between growers; where sources disagree we say so rather than pick a side.