Lithops - ID confirmation

[el48tel]

I have started to make a small collection of Lithops. Two plants, acquired from different sources both have the label "steineckeana" --- And they are obviously not the same plant.
I think plant A is L. steineckeana and going by a Lithops identification key and an on-line encyclopedia this looks like C388.
Plant B I think may be something completely different.
Anyone have confirmation of "A" and ideas about "B" please?

[tonyironscacti]

'A' looks the right shape for it but you just need to see the fresh body before you can say 100% it is right.

The same foe 'B', once the old body has gone we can tell better, but the shape does not look correct.

[iann]

Plant B is L. pseudotruncatella. Would be a hybrid if the seed really came from L. steineckeana.

[topsy]

Hi,

L.steineckeana is a hybrid probably created in a collection, not in the wild. One of the parents is definitely L.pseudotruncatella, hence your second plant looking like that species. The other parent has, as far as I am aware, never been confirmed in spite of various attempts to cross pseudotruncatella with various other genera in the mesemb world.

Des Cole had two flats of L.steineckeana seedlings which showed a good range of characteristics but nothing which indicated what the other parent was. Steve Hammer has tried crossing various genera with pseudotruncatella and discounted them for various reasons and Catherine Arthur in Spain, is exploring a few ideas and maybe has the answer within her grasp.

Suzanne Mace
Mesemb Study Group

[el48tel]

Suzanne
That explains and answers several points which had been puzzling me for a few weeks (at least since acquiring the two plants - and others from a local nursery). The identification key now makes a tad more sense.