The Lumpy Version of the Genus Echinopsis
The following is a partial listing of what was 'reunified' as the lumpy genus Echinopsis:
Chamaecereus
Echinopsis
Helianthocereus
Hymenorebutia
Pseudolobivia
Soehrensia
Trichocereus
Portions of Lobivia (Friedrich & Glaetzle believe that the northernmost species had a "separate and very primitive origin" and thus should be excluded from Echinopsis)
Possibly some portions of Rebutia
Possibly Acanthocalycium but they felt this questionable and left it for future workers to sort out.
[A discussion of synonymy can be found in the 1986 Bradleya 4:72, in Friedrich & Glaetzle 1983 and in Friedrich 1974.]
Backeberg 1977 made a rather lucid, but unhelpful, comment on this topic:
| "The choice is clearly between the narrowly conceived genus, or a continuation without demarcations of the "lumping" process, whereby the concept of a "type-species of a genus" loses all meaning. These attempted combinations start an unwarranted series of chain-reactions." |
Sadly neither Britton & Rose/Backeberg/Ritter's almost amusingly anal splitter's approach nor Friedrich & associates' equally anal, but arguably less entertaining, lumping actually serves as an aid towards achieving a meaningful system of classification.
All workers involved appeared to recognize the problems yet all failed to provide a workable solution
Backeberg for instance understood that any segregation of Trichocereus from Echinopsis was not simply based on rather arbitrary dividing points, that the segregation was a convention done for convenience only and had no basis in reality beyond helping to organize an area that defied the establishment of any clear segregations within it.
while
Friedrich & Glaetzle stressed the need for the reunified genus to be subdivided into subgenera due to the resulting swamp of confusion that said reunification produced and they actually argued that if Trichocereus is to be preserved for any use, it should be reserved for what they termed the "northern" species [By 'northern' they apparently mean those species occurring in Ecuador through Paraguay].
They included T. pachanoi, T. validus, T. taquimbalensis, T. werdermannianus, T. peruvianus, Echinopsis lageniformis (Foerst.) Friedr. & Rowley, ie T. bridgesii), T. tacaquirensis and the descriptionless but renamed Echinopsis gigantea n.n. Knize within this group.
Rowley, Gordon D. (1974) IOS Bulletin 3(3): 93-99. "Reunion of the Genus Echinopsis" is generally given as the reference for the reunification but this is actually nothing more than a laundry list of the Trichocereus species that the reunification eliminates.
This simple list is often mistakenly cited as Friedrich & Rowley 1974 in cactus-related technical literature.
Most interesting was our time, labor & expense required to obtain a copy of this publication.
It was unavailable via Interlibrary loan (who repeatedly insisted that no such publication existed), was unobtainable via any standard periodical referencing service, was not in the possession of any of the long-time IOS members who we know (one of whom complained about not receiving a copy when it came out and reported similarly being unable to obtain one despite repeated efforts and despite being an IOS member AT THE TIME of its publication).
We could not even locate a copy in any of the cactus & succulent literature collections we know of!
Inexplicably, it was also neither available from the subscription secretary of the IOS NOR even from the IOS itself!
After quite literally what proved to be many years of active searching, we finally located an unadvertised copy for sale by Roy Mottram.
An actual discussion can be found in
Friedrich, Heimo (1974) IOS Bulletin 3(3): 79-93. "Zur Taxonomie und Phylogenie der Echinopsidinae (Trichocereinae)"
or in
Friedrich, H. & W. Glaetzle (1983) Bradleya 1: 91-104 "Seed morphology as an aid to classifying the genus Echinopsis Zucc."
So far the best work we have seen done was that of the prolific Echinopsis hybridizer Bob Schick.
Schick proposed breaking up Echinopsis
sensu lato into smaller genera or subgenera. His article on the subject entitled
"Echinopsis Revisited" was posted online at Cacti_etc in April of 2004.
We have been told that an updated version is soon to appear.
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