A freak among freaks

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iann
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A freak among freaks

Post by iann »

I just peeled the old leaves off this L. steineckeana to see what was going on with that strange old flower which was sticking out the top. A real quasimodo of the species.
steineckeana-0520.jpg
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RICHAUD
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Re: A freak among freaks

Post by RICHAUD »

Hi Iann
for me it's just a capsule not mature
when it is dry, there will be seeds with a little luck
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iann
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Re: A freak among freaks

Post by iann »

RICHAUD wrote:Hi Iann
for me it's just a capsule not mature
when it is dry, there will be seeds with a little luck
Would probably be a hybrid. I have a lot of L. pseudotruncatella and not very many L. steineckeana flowers.
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daniel82
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Re: A freak among freaks

Post by daniel82 »

Isn't L steineckeana considered to be a hybrid itself?
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iann
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Re: A freak among freaks

Post by iann »

daniel82 wrote:Isn't L steineckeana considered to be a hybrid itself?
A very probable hybrid, likely inter-generic. One parent almost certainly L. pseudotruncatella and they cross readily producing a range of intermediates.
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RICHAUD
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Re: A freak among freaks

Post by RICHAUD »

I have many thousands Lithops and the hybrids are really exceptional even out with the bees doing the job
self fertilization ?
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iann
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Re: A freak among freaks

Post by iann »

RICHAUD wrote:I have many thousands Lithops and the hybrids are really exceptional even out with the bees doing the job
self fertilization ?
How would you know for sure? Thousands of possible combinations, probably most of them highly non-viable, and the few possibles are easy to swamp with more natural pollinations and time-consuming to detect even when they happen. I have a handful of possible inter-species hybrids, not all of them convincing. A few others are known in cultivation, but not especially interesting. Strangely, the crosses between Lithops and Dinteranthus seem to be more worthwhile to cultivate.

However, hybrids are very easy in this case. Here are some seedlings, some you'd be hard to tell from L. steineckeana, some you'd be hard to tell from L. pseudotruncatella, and some obvious intermediates. Not unexpected if it is a hybrid with L. pseudotruncatella as one parent.
xsteineckeana-080711.jpg
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RICHAUD
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Re: A freak among freaks

Post by RICHAUD »

hi Iann
I'm talking of hybridation between Lithops species and not with other genera

I read many years ago an article about the impossibility of making hybrids with Lithops
Basically this article said that Lithops were recent plants and therefore had a complex DNA which explained this impossibility of hybridization
The best example is made with the Ets Kuentz in Frejus: his Lithops were outside with the bees that make the pollinators and he sows his seeds without ever having hybrids
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Re: A freak among freaks

Post by Terry S. »

There are documented examples of Lithops hybrids, e.g. Dr. Clark's 'Moss Agate' which is meyeri x geyeri and the ubiquitous mutipots of fulleri x salicola which are produced in the low countries and contain a high proportion of greenies. But hybrids do seem rare and it was interesting that when Des Cole reintroduced brandbergensis, the last taxon that he needed for the "set", it was essentially identical to material that had been cultivated and seed-raised for many years from the original discovery.

I doubt whether the age of a genus has much to do with ability to hybridise. Conophytum is probably of more recent origin than Lithops (a statement partly based on distribution area), but almost every species can be crossed with any other (Hammer's experiments). Logically one would expect genetic diversity to increase with age of the genus.
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iann
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Re: A freak among freaks

Post by iann »

Its a shame that multi-headed L. steineckeana become a bit fragile, because I like the look of this one.
steineckeana-0615.jpg
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