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[New Wisdom]

So I thought I'd start a discussion on these two different clones or species of Pereskiopsis that are floating around. 

This one grows much broader thicker leaves, has WAY more hair, less spines that are generally longer, and less glochids that are also bigger and easier to pick out. This clone seems to grow thicker stocks and stays soft longer. This makes it a way better option for grafting in my opinion.





The second clone (or species) is almost hairless no matter the growing conditions.  The leaves tend to be smaller, the glochids are smaller and harder to pick out of your skin. They seem to get woody a lot faster and therefore harder to graft on older sections. They have an obvious difference in appearance. 





Keep in mind that these pictures i'm showing you are plants grown in exactly same soil, pots, and light conditions in the same spot. When grown outside the hairier clone gets less hair and bigger spines, but are still very hairy.  They still have a very different look when grown outside. 

The taxonomy around pereskiopsis seems pretty blurry to me and I couldn't find much information on the differences between these.  What do you all think about this. Are these different species or just two different variations of spathulata. I feel like the difference in traits i've recognized would be a sign that it's a different species all together in the Pereskiopsis genus

4 Likes TBM, happyconcacti, PermieGing and LIBERTYNY like this.

[muze801]

Did you ever find out if these are just two different phenotypes/morphologies of P. spathulata or separate species, NW? Curious now that I have some of both here...

[New Wisdom]

I have no clue.  I personally believe they are two separate species, but that is just opinion.  There hasn't been much work done on pereskiopsis taxonomy.

If anyone else has an opinion on this please post here. I would love to hear more thoughts on this!

Thanks,
New Wisdom

1 Like fairdinkumseeds likes this.

[Sunshine]

My opinion-

Being that the species hasn't been officially named and the fact we're a huge ethnobotanical cultivation group, perhaps we could name the two variations collectively? I'm not sure how species are named. I suppose they're named by the person who discovers them ya? Who better to do it then us? Thoughts?

1 Like TBM likes this.

[TBM]

If you view the Pereskiopsis page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pereskiopsis on Wikipedia, listed under species on the right side of the page near the bottom there are 7 Pereskiopsis species other than spathulata listed, however the pages for the other 7 do not exist..... Maybe it was someone playing around and messing with data? I'm not sure but maybe that shows there are others who think there's more than spathulata?

[New Wisdom]

There are definitely more pereskiopsis species, but I have seen both of these clones I talk of listed as spathulata.  I have also seed the hairy one listed as spathulata and then the bald listed as porteria, but P. porteria is synonymous with P. spathulata according to other sources.  It's all very unclear like most cacti taxonomy.