Cotyledon in flower

[Ernie]

Today I found this in flower. Its been very dark ,dismal and extremely wet here in North East England but this plant and the Othonna's are ignoring the conditions. (inside and outside the greenhouse!)
Cotyledon ladismithensis reverse variegated.

[MatDz]

Such a nice little "bush" you have here!

I believe this is C. tomentosa ssp. tomentosa, not ssp. ladysmithensis, cf. https://www.crassulaceae.ch/de/artikel? ... T&aID=2254 and https://www.crassulaceae.ch/de/artikel? ... T&aID=2256

[Ernie]

Mat, thank you for your comments. I will be interested to read any comments from our national Judge Stuart. I got the plant from him in 2018 described/advertised as Cotyledon ladismithiensis reverse variegated. In the interim the name as I have it will remain.

[Stuart]

I've always known it as Ladismithiensis and having looked at the Ernst vJ book it suggests there's not much to choose between this one and Tomentosa, he describes it as 'Very variable with intermediate forms between the two species'. It's generally seen in the trade as Ladismithiensis. I have a variegated one with different shaped leaves that I'll see if I can take a photo to add in here. Derek is probably best when it comes to Cotyledon. His opinion is probably better that mine.

Stuart

[MatDz]

I will absolutely leave this in Derek's hands, but the rest of the "Diagnostic Features" section and the drawings from the following pages would suggest this is a variegated ssp. tomentosa:

Of the two subspecies, subsp. ladismithiensis has almost terete leaves with 1-3 apical teeth, and subsp. tomentosa has somewhat dorsiventrally flattened leaves with 3-10 marginal teeth.

The plates match photographs from the crassulacea.ch pages.

[Ernie]

I found the following text on the internet. There's also a photograph of a plant at the US Botanic garden that looks exactly as mine and is labelled as C. tomentosa ssp. ladismithensis . I am now confused! Hopefully Derek will reveal all.
Cotyledon tomentosa is a perennial evergreen shrub, which is a member of the Crassulaceae family of succulent flowering plants.[7] C. tomentosa has red, orange, or yellow bell-shaped flowers between July and September,[12][7] and there are two recognized subspecies, subsp. tomentosa and subsp. ladismithiensis.[7]

C. tomentosa subsp. tomentosa, the autonymous subspecies, is a small, freely branched shrublet that grows to 70 cm tall. It has chunky green tomentose leaves that are oblanceolate to oblong, with 3-8 reddish teeth at the end.[12][7] The other subspecies, subsp. ladismithiensis, features long cylindrical leaves that generally do not have teeth. Subsp. ladismithiensis also tends to be smaller and less branched than subsp. tomentosa. Finally, subsp. ladismithiensis has brown peeling bark, compared to the green hairy branches of subsp. tomentosa.[7]

[Apicra]

There are multiple little errors in the text quoted immediately above and one has to be careful which sites to believe on the Internet. Margrit's International Crassulaceae Network (ICN) is accurate as far as it goes.

It was Helmut Toelken who uncovered by reference to herbarium sheets that Jacobsen's old photos had got the wrong plant as C. ladysmithensis. He corrected this when he published C. tomentosa ssp. ladismithensis, correcting the spelling of Ladismith in the Little Karoo, since there is another Ladysmith. These sheets can be easily checked online nowadays but are password protected.

So Ernie's plant is Cotyledon tomentosa ssp. tomentosa 'Yellow Palm' as illustrated on the ICN.

[Ernie]

Excellent. Thank you Derek. I will alter the name . Maybe I should ask Stuart for my money back

[Tony R]

Maybe I should ask Stuart for my money back

Or ask Stuart's dear wife, Jane, to send you a new label!

[MatDz]

Ha!

While we're on this, does anyone grow the ssp. ladismithensis in the UK?