As you must know, Haworthia is quite a large genus with about sixty species, growing right across South Africa, which includes winter and summer rainfal areas. Thus different species have different flowering times. Most I find are summer and autumn flowering, or at least they were, before I got int...

And I remember a Southend BCSS branch coach outing to Ron Dale's and Hilda Guirl's nurseries. At the latter, all the seedlings were in trays and it took ages to dig out what people wanted to buy. I also got to visit Donkelaar in the Netherlands - he had a massive list of unusual succulents, but not...

It's inevitable that leaf tips will dry up sooner or later - it's just the natural life-cycle of each leaf. Judges should only consider it a problem if it is an excessive proportion of the total plant i.e. the plant has been starved for some reason or another. Personaly, I think the maculate Aloe l...

Dear Peyton, It was news to me, but that checks out in the books. The classic White, Dyer & Sloane "The Succulent Euphorbiaceae" describes polygona as having dark-purple glands and horrida with green glands. Other differences are identified, but all are a matter of degree. Well, the pu...

Come on - unusual and challenging, yes - but this dull Haworthia is also boring! How can it ever be a favourite when there are so many other stars in the genus e.g. splendens, badia, reinwardtii, aranea, truncata, hybrids, selections, even semiviva! What is really your favourite? BTW, this Forum is...

Oops - do I detect a bit of scorch on your leaves, even behind all that bubble polythene, Aloenut? This miniature usually does well on the show benches and should grow OK on a bright windowsill. A. descoingsii really does have an unusual flower for any Aloe - such a short tube & narrow opening....

I saw Haw. semiviva in South Africa once. If anything interesting was around, it was going to be on that small cliff face up there ... south facing (shady) ... so I edge out along a ledge and there in front of my face was a mess of Haworthia leaves ... impossible to get decent photos! Defintely mor...

Bruce Bayer made a special trip to try and find more Haw. limifolia populations - with quite a lot of success. He writes about this in the expensive Haworthia Update 2, published by Harry Mays. H. l. v. arcana is a nice glossy form, but the other populations are attractive and nearly as distinctive...

Great disection Roy! Did you find the little pollinia (pollen sacks) waiting to be carried away? They should be at the bottom of one of those dark channels, glinting orange/brown, I think.

Best wishes,
Derek Tribble,
London, UK

Dunno really, but I would have expected more ribs on a horrida and thus a broader stem. Thus its difficult to identify small plants without habitat data. In the field, I've only ever seen the waxy grey colouring on horrida - all the polygonas give the impression of being green with reddish spines. ...