BCSS - Forum

Out of probably a couple of hundred plants, these two stand out.

Texas Rose

Hammer Ruby

I like 'Hammeruby', well grown plants especially look really good. The yellow flowers do nothing for me though, perhaps my fashion sense is broken.

Nothing but praise for pink flowers though, different is just special I suppose.

CactusKid ..... you're not wrong. Two stunningly good plants. And the colour of the Texas Rose is amazing. I'm not a big fan of Lithops but that plant has just gone onto my "must have" list.

I bought a Rose of Texas plant at the Leeds meeting on Monday. The pink petals were sticking out of the bud so I thought it would be open the next day, but the weather has been so grey that I still haven't seen the flower.

Lots of Lithops show pink petals in the bud but then turn out to be yellow, but fingers crossed this is a real one because the pink flowers do look good on this species (pink on grey, trusting my fashion sense again but I think I'm right).

I did buy a labelled plant, I wasn't just guessing from 2mm of petals! It kind of opened today but not fully.

Lithops verruculosa Rose of Texas flower, not quite open by Kathy, on Flickr

I got there too! Oops, that one is regular weird L. verruculosa colour. These are pink:

Mine finally opened more. The colour has changed a lot.

Lithops verruculosa Rose of Texas by Kathy, on Flickr

A nice display of L. verruculosa. Interesting how 'Rose of Texas' can vary in colour so much.

I am not sure where Steve Hammer established the name 'Rose of Texas' for this cultivar, but the photograph 194 in his Lithops book is typical of the original plants. On this basis KathyM's plant looks the closest of those illustrated. With any cultivar that is based on a seed strain, there is always a problem in deciding how much variation can be allowed before the cultivar name no longer applies. This is a seedling from Steve's original plants: