Lots of cacti at home depo. Please help me identify dream inducing ones. Many many thanks to you.

The taller grey-green one in back on right looks interesting...how is it labeled? HD usually carries only the T. pachanoi....and to be honest, they are pretty pricey if you live in a warm climate. I'm also pretty sure that around here HD sells the T. pach PC, or predominant cultivator, which is a "weak" nothing-to-write-home-about strain.

I've never seen other active T's at HD, and I"ve seen a few non-San PEdros that were mislabeled as such.

Try smaller boutique nurseries, or even those tthat specialize in cactus and succulents. You could well find some peruvi's or some bridgesii's.

None of them are labeled with their scientific names, unfortunately. Joebono says that they are too little to be effective too. Plus they seem difficult to identify from my shoddy pictures. I am starting to think this venture will be unsuccessful.

Some of them look like pachanoi's or peruvianus. I think many of the shown torches are definately T's anyway and they probably do contain psycho-active alkaloïds but how potent they are is hard to tell. I can't realy see how large they are from the picture's but they look too small to produce very strong effects. you need something at least 30 centimeters long to get psychedelic effects.
They may be large enough to produce noticeable effects, though. Depending on the alkaloid profile you may expect mild stimulating or mildly sedating effects.

I think the pictures make them look smaller than they are. Some of them were definitely more than 7 inches, so I could get more than one... Could taking one that I shouldn't have potentially hurt me? I'm undecided at the moment of about what to do.

There are some peruvian looking things in pics 1 3 and 4. I heard the one in the bottom pic is "too blue" to be kosher, so I would avoid that little guy.

also, colored flowers, as far as I know mean non-active.
As far as flowers go, white is good.

what I meant to say earlier, and to be more specific: as far as I know active Trich cacti have white flowers ... there are likely many more Trich and non-Trich varieties that also have white flowers. I have heard of no confirmed reports of any active cacti having colored flowers.

the only one i see there that could possibly be a active trich is the one at the front in the second pic nexto what seems to be a pilocereus - but im totally not sure if it even is a trich.
the nice blue ones seen in a few pix is Myrtillocactus geometrizans or blue myrtle.

check this page - easy id on a whole bunch of a cacti
u can get it in downloadble form too.

http://samaracactus.ru/holland2.htm

This post is so helpful. I actually found something that looks dead-on to the blue myrtle seen in these pics. I bought it hoping it was a trich. hybrid or something, and knowing it would atleast be a good stock for grafting. The needles on the blue myrtle really made me question things. I found mine in a drug-store as I was waiting to pickup a script. She's very happy after I repotted her, well the pair of them. They'll be used for grafting, within the next year or so.

I can never say it enough. Man, I love the world wide web.

This is just a last ditch effort. I found these two guys at a different store. One is cereus peruv. Forget which one though. If one of these could work for me, please let me know!

Thank you lovely nexians.

to my knowledge, and though I'm not a expert, there are no reports suggesting that any of the Cereus cacti are "active". The Cereus specimans often have very thin ribs, like the one in your picture, kind of like enlongated flaps. The ones discussed on this nexus and similar websites belong to the Trichocereus genus (and not all of those are "active". I think some scientists have recently reclassified most of the Trichocereus into the Echinopsis (sp?) genus. However, the Cereus plants can be very hardy and good additions to a garden.

plus...it'd be a nightmare peeling that guy!

You're best coming at this from the opposite angle - learn what Trichocereus pachanoi (San Pedro), T. peruvianus (Peruvian Torch) or Lophophora williamsii (Peyote) etc. look like and then browse garden centres with that knowledge in mind.

I am lucky enough to visit dozens of garden centres for work, and armed with this knowledge, I buy one if I see it. I have never seen enough available at one time for a "dose", and supply is irregular, but I have a bit of a collection going now.

It is massively cheaper buying this way than on the internet (at least in the UK) as the garden centres don't charge the premium that any "shamanic" or "sacred plants" type of web site charges. My oldest Peyote now yields about 40 seeds per season (I'll never eat this one!) but it is very hard to get the seeds to grow, and takes years for them to get to an edible size. Trichocereus grows much faster if you're in a hurry.

id say the last pix are cereus peruvianus and cereus peruvianus var monstrose

None of the cacti in these pictures looks like a good psychoactive. The ones that are bluish-green and look somehow like trichocereus peruvianus/pachanoi are blue myrtle

Thanks everybody. I guess it's just not meant to be atm.

I found a nice looking pedro at Target in the garden center. It is most likely a DC, but I couldn't pass it up. I gave it to a friend... I didn't mention that it was probably week, he is soooo happy just to be growing a magic friend.

I bought some great looking pedro and torch cactus online. They are growing now, but soon enough I will test the potency.