big post today! Lots of photos and good news!
First of all I noticed earlier today my Nepenthes khasiana x mirabilis made this pitcher tendril. It may not seem like much but in the genus Nepenthes when a vining plant starts to produce curly tendrils that means intermediate or upper pitchers will begin to form. They do this because an upper pitcher can be bigger or a different shape that requires more stability. Some species won't produce upper pitchers until the tendril grabs onto something. another reason is when a plant is vining very high up it needs support. The tendrils wrapping around branches or leaves in the canopy provide this. If this pitcher doesn't inflate in a few weeks I'll attempt to give it something to grab onto.
I obtained this Stephania sp. from a LACSS (Los Angeles Cacti And Succulent Society) meeting around 2 months ago. The tag name doesn't seem to be any Stephania sp. I can find online. The plant is doing very well in this terracotta pot in a soil mixture of pumice, compost, turface, chicken grit, and a pleasing top layer of rocks. The leaves look very nice when the sun is on them. When talking about Stephania I must address the poaching problem with this genus along with many other caudiciform plants. Every Stephania you can find online for sale is poached from Thailand. Please do not support the unethical (though technically legal) poaching of plants. This specimen was bought from a well know member of the society. It also has quite a good root system and is quite small. This leads me to believe this plant was either poached a while ago and given time to grow in cultivation, a bulb division form a larger specimen, or a seed grown plant.
I have quite a collection of plants from the genus Haworthia. Most of my plants have collection data from the location they were collected and the person who did so. These are division or offspring of seeds produced from the original plants from the specific locality. These plants came from either Steven Hammer, a renowned cultivator of all things mesembryanthema or Haworthia Land in Europe (imported with proper documentation and permits).
These are a few very interesting plants. They are called xStomaticia, a hybrid between the mesemb genera Neohenricia and Stomatium. They were produced by Russel Wagner of Pollen8Nursery. I initially had 3 specimens produced by random pollination in his greenhouse but 1 specimen didn't do well in my climate. It was much less bulky than the other 2 specimens and most likely of different parentage.
I also received a handful of cuttings of various Stomatium sp. from Russel Wagner. They were collected by Russel himself in South Africa through proper permits. they all have rooted well and some have flowered. Some are mildly etiolated because of the shade location I placed them in to spare them the intense sunlight while they rooted. I will acclimate them to more sun this summer using shade cloth of various strengths. I have quite a few more to share but this post is already quite long.
This is a favorite of mine. A very nice specimen of Nananthus transvaalensis with quite an impressive caudex like root system. I am slowly raising it to stage and enter in a cacti and succulent show in the next few years.
I love the genus Conophytum. They sparked my love for succulents and botany in general. They have a very interesting summer month dormancy method. They wrinkle down and look and behave as if fully dead without water. Then when the first rains of winter occur, they spring up and push through the dead body of the previous season. I highly recommend you do your own research on them online and perhaps begin cultivating some. I have a lot of very rare conophytum seeds to try to rear this coming cool season. I even have some C. bachelorum with locality information. The plant shown below is a favorite of mine. I obtained it from Steven Hammer and potted in a handmade pot I purchased at my first ever cacti and succulent show.
This is an experimental staging of two Conophytum species, Albuca osmynella, and the diminutive Ornithogalum britteniae. The Conophytum have just began to go dormant.
