Trichocereus peruvianus from Matucana

Trichocereus peruvianus from Matucana

Trichocereus peruvianus from Matucana is one of the most sought after types. Matucana is the type locality of Trichocereus peruvianus, which means that in Matucana you can find the most typical plants according to the description. The description was originally made by the Americans Britton & Rose, and the described a plant that must have been somewhere between Trichocereus peruvianus and Trichocereus cuzcoensis. And yes, Trichocereus cuzcoensis plays a part in the history of Trichocereus peruvianus as well. Both are so closely related and exist with many intermediate forms in between that Britton & Rose´s decision to keep them separated from each other was not regarded without criticism.

One of the most typical Matucana Peruvianus types is the ICARO DNA Peruvianus. Icaro Dna made a name for themselves providing great quality seeds that are probably as true as it gets to the original description. To me, when I hear the name MATUCANA, I think of this remarkable type.
Photo: Trichocereus.com.au

Some more Matucana Peruvianus types are the LOS GENTILES Peruvanus from Sacred Succulents and my own Matucana Peruvianus in my shop! Sorry for the promo, but it´s super high quality seeds that you will love!

But now back to the Matucana Perus. Sacred Succulents had the great luck to visit some of them during their South America Field Trips. Here are some of them:

Trichocereus peruvianus, Matucana, Peru

Trichocereus Peruvianus without a field number. Again in Matucana Peru. Very cool Glauceous Tricho, similar to the cultivar Trichocereus Rosei or Trichocereus Glaucus. Pic: Ben Kamm, Sacredsucculents.com! Please support them because they are awesome!

BK08612.4-A Trichocereus peruvianus, Matucana, Peru

Another frosted Peruvianus from the Location in Matucana. Very similar to the Plants that are labeled „Trichocereus Rosei“. Or Trichocerus Glaucus! Pic: Ben Kamm, Sacredsucculents.com!

Another type that is believed to be a Matucana type is the Australian Trichocereus rosei clone. It´s fabulous and one of my absolute favorites. Rosei 2 is DEFINITELY a Matucana…and Rosei 1 most likely. The alternative would be that it comes from Rimac, but I want to show it here too!

This is Rosei 2, just for comparisons:

Some of those plants are sometimes called Trichocereus santaensis, but those are usually thinner and overall closer to Trichocereus pachanoi or sometimes even Trichocereus bridgesii than they are to Trichocereus peruvianus.

Well, that was one of the more typical Trichocereus peruvianus from Matucana. This city in Peru is one of the historic cactus sites, especially for the species Trichocereus peruvianus. Matucana is the type locality of Trichocereus peruvianus, which means that in Matucana you can find the most typical plants. But there is more; many many plants with cuzcoensis genetics. For example, KK242 is from Matucana too! And due to the high number of intermediates between Trichocereus cuzcoensis and Trichocereus peruvianus, it´s sometimes not easy to draw a firm line between them.

This photo shows a fairly typical KK242 from Matucana. The photo comes from K.Trout and his website troutsnotes.com.

And now compare this to this other plant from Matucana:

It´s funny…but that one was sold as KK242 from Matucana too. Just to give you an understanding of what is actually out there.

Trichocereus peruvianus from Matucana

Rosei 1- Trichocereus Peruvianus

Rosei 1 – Trichocereus Peruvianus

Both Rosei 1 and Rosei 2 are among the most popular clones in the Trichocereus grower community. Just like so many great plants, they originated from the Fields collection in Victoria. The name was used in very old cactus literature to label a certain, very blue types of San Pedro. This name was mostly applied to the same plants that were later called “Trichocereus Macrogonus”. Which is another old name that is no longer in function. The name Trichocereus Rosei was never an officially described species and that´s why the Rosei 1 and Rosei 2 can only be called “commercial varieties” of simply a local form of Trichocereus Peruvianus. It´s not clear where the Rosei 1+ Rosei 2 seed came from but based on the fact that they both originated from the Fields collection, chances are that they grew out of the same seed bag.

Despite the fact that Rosei 1 and Rosei 2 are actually clones, you can find very similar Peruvianus specimens in nature. In particular, one of the types that occur in Matucana is very similar and chances are, that Rosei 1 and Rosei 2 originally came from that area too.

But because of the countless “planted” populations that can be found throughout the habitats, you can sometimes encounter similar plants at different locations too. So we probably won’t be able to find out where exactly they came from, but I´ll have a look at old cactus catalogues to see if there might be some old seed lists that include the collection sites.

According to people who visited the Fields family, those plants originally came from South America. But since that´s really a very big area, that´s not really helping. It is said thatRosei 1 has shorter spines than Rosei 2 and usually has a more glaucous/blue epidermis. But because the environment can have a huge influence on the look of a plant, I am not entirely sure about what´s normal for this clone and what not.

This is a Hybrid between Rosei 1 x Open

Another plant from a ROSEI 1 x OPEN cross

Rosei 1 x Pachanoi

 

Rosei 1- Trichocereus Peruvianus