Haworthia venosa ssp. tesselata

This is the H. venosa var. tesselata we're all familiar with. You can clearly see the difference between it and tesselata 'simplex' posted a few days ago.

Several have asked how I'm doing. Thank you; I'm doing fine. I just can't lift anything heavy for a while (per doctor's orders) and that's frustrating. Thanks for your concern.

Uncarina roeoesliana and Uncarina peltata

A little change of pace today. The flowers in the first photo are on Uncarina roeoesliana. The second photo includes both U. roeoesliana (in the front row) and U. peltata (in the back row), showing the difference in the caudex. The U. peltata flowers have a purple throat. They're from the island nation of Madagascar.

These flowers are pollinated by beetles and the usual method of hand pollinating the flowers doesn't work. They like a fair amount of water, with - of course - adequate drainage.

The following picture isn't from our plants. It shows the seedpod on a plant in Madagascar.

Image via Wikipedia

Enjoy your plants.

Haworthis venosa ssp. venosa

A question has been asked about the differences between Haworthia venosa ssp. venosa and ssp. tesselata. I don't have any ssp. venosa, but I'll post a habitat photo taken by David Martin. The main described difference is in the degree of reticulation.

Where the plants labeled "simplex" fall in this variable species I don't know.

Jatropha cathartica and Haworthia venosa ssp. tesselata var. simplex

I should have noted a few days ago when I posted Jatropha berlandieri (Torrey 1858) that this is an invalid synonym for Jatropha cathartica (Teran & Berlandier 1832). Since J. cathartica has priority, it would be the correct name. Old habits are sometimes hard to change.

With that said, here's a new photo of Haworthia venosa ssp. tesselata var. simplex. Of course, there is no variety simplex. Or, at least, it's not accepted as a variety by most anyone.  It's just a part of the variability of the sub-species tesselata. Be that as it may, it's a nice variation.

Gasteria 'Frosty'

The last of my Gasteria posts for a bit, this is Gasteria 'Frosty', a cultivar of Gasteria brachyphylla. You can't see it too well in this photo but the edges are translucent and the frosty-blue leaves are sometimes accented with splashes of green. Quite impressive.

Enjoy your plants.

Gasteria glomerata

We don't specialize in gasterias but somehow we always end up with many, many of them. This is one of my favorites. It's small growing, has outstanding orange-red flowers and a rough-textured leaf. And, as a bonus, it's very easy to grow.

Haworthia chloracantha var. denticulifera

These are true miniatures, staying quite small, but multiplying to form an extensive mat of plants. I admit that I'm a sucker for some of the miniature succulents; just because they're small and require the use of a magnifying glass to fully discover their beauty doesn't make them unworthy of growing.

Place these next to the truncatas from a few days ago and it's hard to imagine they're from the same genus!

Enjoy your plants!

Hoya compacta 'regalis'

Today wasn't the day to get out into the greenhouses to take photos. Too many other things had to be done. So...out of the archives comes this photo of the well-known variegated Hindu Rope plant, Hoya compacta 'Regalis'. They do seem to be very attractive to mealy bugs, but other than that, they're exceedingly easy to grow...tolerant of a lot of neglect. And as soon as the weather permits they all go outside where they'll be hit with a good blast of water from the hose and "bye-bye" mealies. And the flowers...wow.