Just a suggestion - but for those who have the experience and skill of being able to identify cacti, could you please try to give reasons? Eg spination., colour, shape etc, or even - "it looks the same as a cactus I have which has a label ".

If you can I think it would help us novices.

I'm a novice as well Roger but this info may help
http://cactiguide.com/cactiornot/
Look forward to what the experts say though

I think that is a great idea Roger!!!

constantly looking at books and pics (with names) on tha net is prolly the best bet. I think you will find most "experts" usually have a large collection of books which to scan thru and quickly get an id or information on said sp.

That's true PD it does help to have a good library, mine is now growing lol.
However when the names are so confusing and get changed because some scientist decides it doesn't belong in that species anymore, it's enuf to drive ya nuts.
Take Stenocactus - which is it Stenocactus or Echinofossulocactus? I would not like to try doing a thesus on cacti, by the time you finished the names would all be wrong!!!! lmao!!!
Also a lot of the pictures you look at seem to be similar, so what do you look for? Number of spines, ribs, columnar, globose? Or does it come down to wait for it to flower and hopefully decide then what cactus you have?

I guess it all comes down to wait for the flower usually.
I used to have cacti id'd and i was like, but myne has heaps more spines and has 6 ribs instead of 8, etc etc, but then i found out that it all depends on the individual cactus.

I have found the best ways to identify that mystery plant are; ask a more experienced grower, post a photo of it on an online forum like this, internet browsing and reading/flicking through a cactus book and eventually locating something vaguely similar. although the last may seem like a chore not knowing where to start, for the true cactus empassioned it couldn't be further from the truth.

Vicki wrote:

Take Stenocactus - which is it Stenocactus or Echinofossulocactus?

well it is now officially Stenocactus. all former members of Echinofossulowhatever have since been transferred to Stenocactus. which, although perhaps a relief for the collector of these plants who is writing name tags, it did result in some confusion. unfortunately from a taxonomic viewpoint this is by far the most complex group of cacti ever attempted to be classified. to see this all you have to do is go through an older cactus publication and notice all the now defunct Echinofossulocactus species names. It seems a very large proportion of the plants once given distinct species status have been absorbed into S. multicostatus and crispatus. in any case this is an extremely variable group of plants and you can call just about anything thats a Stenocactus multicostatus/crispatus and be done with it.
Cactus names are ever changing, due to taxonomic revisions and as increasingly effective (apparently) methods of classification are devised.