In natural taxa such as Pilosocereus pentaedrophorus (Labouret) Byles & G. D. Rowley, whose distribution extends across four states of Brazil, i.e. Bahia, Minas Gerais, Pernambuco, and Sergipe, at elevations from 5 to 1,000 m asl (data gathered from: Taylor, N. P. & Zappi, D. 2013. Pilosocereus pentaedrophorus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2013. Downloaded on 17 January 2020), it seems inconsistent to elect taxonomic distinctions at the intraspecific level, such as those which should distinguish from the type species, ssp. robustus, that is "br <7.5 cm diameter" and "ri (5-) 6-10" for ssp. robustus vs. “br <4.5 (-6) cm diameter" and "ri 4-6 (-7)" for P. pentaedrophorus (Hunt et al. 2006, text: 239). Please note that the population of A&M 1428, P. pentaedrophorus, Brazil, Bahia, Tanhaçu, between Tanhaçu and Sussuarana, 401 m, in the distributional area of  ssp. robustus, bears characters at the limit between the two taxa, i.e. br <6.3-6.9 cm in diameter, on 7-8 ribs. In the light of these considerations we prefer to consider Pilosocereus pentaedrophorus ssp. robustus Zappi in the synonymy of P. pentaedrophorus. (Quoted from Anceschi & Magli 2021, 83-84)