This odd but beautifully lumpy columnar Trichocereus appears to have arisen as an instance of bad labelling.

It resembles some of the Juul’s Giant material in cultivation but has more & longer spines, larger flowers and far hairier fruit in contrast to the nearly bare fruit of TJG.

It is seemingly represented in cultivation in the University of California at Berkeley Botanical Gardens but that stand is clearly mislabeled Cereus colossus Bolivia 66.0159 (Note the presence of abundant wool and hairs in the pictures of flower and fruit)

Flowering at the UC BBG has been recorded in October (see photos below). Seeds have been reported to have been collected in November

Also in horticulture is seed grown material said to have been originally collected from the same plants some years ago. This offering, however, should be suspected of having an unclear paternal input due to the self-sterile nature of Trichocereus species in general and the uncontrolled formation of the fruit that yielded the seeds.

Trichocereus colossus images

This is clearly NOT synonymous with the Ritter collected material designated FR 387 Piptanthocereus (Cereus) colosseus Ritter spec. nov. (Ritter 1980, 2:553-554; A photo appeared as as figure 426) Ritter reported his species from Mairana, Prov. Florida, Argentina and from Gran Chaco, Dept. Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Comparison of Ritter’s photo and the BBG material shows them to be very different plants (Ritter’s photo shows an unmistakable Cereus species nicely matching what is present at the Huntington.)

The records at the BBG indicated their plant to be a Ritter s.n. grown by them from ISI seeds obtained from H. Winter (in Germany) in 1966. Their records also list this material as "deceased".

When and how this error was introduced is presently unclear; as is exactly what portion of the horticultural material offered under this name or a variant spelling is actually a Trichocereus or a Cereus.

According to an e-mail conversation forwarded by MS Smith, “Cereus” colossus is said by Terry Hewitt to be “lumpy” and "reasonably well distributed under this name” (in Europe) [For example: Hewitt’s Holly Gate in Sussex, England has specimens for sale at very reasonable prices.]

Efforts to obtain a specimen of Hewitt’s plants in order to directly compare them with the BBG material have thus far proved futile due to exorbitantly expensive CITES restrictions on the shipping of cacti (even if cultivated). (A friend examining them stated they were very clearly a Cereus.)

Apparently the shipping of a plant valued at substantially less than $10 US now requires somewhere around $100 US (£50) worth of CITES documentation in addition to the shipping costs or it will be siezed and destroyed by USDA/APHIS after entering Customs. (Not to mention the time and effort now needed for the shipper to obtain the documentation)

The solitary column of Cereus colloseus that is on display at the Huntington is clearly a Cereus.