Welcome to the Forum, Kenneth, from another Gasteria grower!

Hi Ian and others, In my experience, there are certain cleistos which are prone to die back at the tips (eg smaragdiflorus, tupizensis) while others are fine (strausii).... there is an interesting sentence in Cullmann, Gotz and Groner's book: "The upland species from Bolivia can be kept complet...

Colin Walker Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Hi Tony, > > I have H labelled now as C. baumannii ssp. > santacruzensis. This is a new plant for me and > until I broke the longest stem yesterday it was > going great guns. Allowing for the fact that you > don't seem to ...

Hi Colin, All the cleistos I have grown from my own collected seed over the years have grown true to type. Indeed my original C. strausii (my index number C2, acquired in Jan 1984) regularly flowered and set seed when it was the only cleisto in my collection. It is still going strong, bedded out in ...

H - so if I was close with C. horstii, it must be C. santacruzensis ? The clones I have of C. baumannii ssp. santacruzensis are much more upright than this, slightly thicker (3cm) but also offset from the base and very similar in spination to the stems on the right.

Hi Colin. So, C. tominensis it is for C . It is one of the few Cleisto species I don't have, if that is an excuse, but the flower helps considerably. Interestingly, I have had two plants for many years from different sources labelled C. brookei (sic!) which are not C. brookeae or wendlandiorum , and...

An update - the flowers shown to you in May have now "turned into" fruits and are ripening nicely!

[attachment 20831 robustafruits.jpg]

No probs! I'll await some "closer" pictures of C and H with interest. I've just been out to the g/house and snapped these ripened fruits on one of my several clones of C. strausii. I'd better harvest the seeds soon before the ants carry them away!

[attachment 20830 strausii_seeds.jpg]

Hi Colin, Pleased my memory served me well! Yes, I'm dyslexic when it comes to smaragdiflorus! What else have I got that grows at 45degree angles - how about C. horstii for H (or C. baumannii ssp. horstii if you prefer) and C. morawetzianus for C ? Regarding fruits, yes, relatively sporadic (we just...

Nice group photo, Colin, nothing like a challenge, Cleistocacti without flowers, as Dave says! I would need to compare with some in my collection to be sure, but I'll guess a few from memory: A looks like C. hyalacanthus (the "false" strausii) B C. strausii C could be one of many!! D maybe...