Birmingham Show - Best Cactus and Succulent

[Stuart]

I was going through photos from Birmingham Branch Show last month, the plants that won best cactus and succulent were two that are not seen regularly at shows
The best cactus was a very old Aztekium Ritteri on its own roots. very well grown and good presentation.

The best succulent was Ceraria Pygmaea, maybe it hadn't spent all its life in the UK but it was originally in Tom Jenkins' collection and I've not seen one that size before.
Along with Oxford, Birmingham is one of the major annual shows, in a great venue and the ideal place to show our hobby to the public.

Stuart

[juster]

Lovely plants

[Tina]

LOVELY is that bob potters ceraria, must be seriously old, my home grown seedlings only have a trunk maybe 1.5cm after more than 10 years of pampering

[Stuart]

Yes, that's Bob's plant, Specks used to sell what were probably habitat plants with a caudex about 5cms across, I've not seen this plant before but it's probably been in cultivation for 50 years knowing its history though it was probably a habitat plant. I didn't know when I judged it. Even small seed-grown plants don't seem to be around these days. If anyone's in the Sussex area, Bob's speaking on caudiciforms at the next Brighton Branch meeting on 30th November.

Stuart

[Tina]

They will grow easily from cuttings, when I grew a few they didn't seem that popular. Maybe people didn't realise what they were.

hhm Mr Riley, please check you emails

[Apicra]

I'm a bit puzzled that the Portulacaria pygmaea above is not larger if it was the specimen belonging to Tom Jenkins. As part of a collection class in the 1983 National Show, I photographed it and it does not look much bigger now after 40 years! However, I do find that my small specimen does have branches dry up.

How many of these treasures can you identify? I doubt if any one person in the UK could assemble such a collection of rarities even though many unusual plants are easier to obtain nowadays.

Best wishes,
Derek Tribble

[Phil White]

This is the same plant in 2018, it flowers well every year & with the other Aztekiums seems to be attracting hover flies in more recent years !

[Stuart]

I'd expect it is the same Ceraria Pygmaea in the photo from 40 years ago. I'm impressed that you could find a photo that quickly, I certainly couldn't. It's now in a large pot, probably larger than it looks in the photo, about 12ins across. I don't know if Tom collected it himself but there were a huge amount of habitat plants available in those days. It makes the Specks plants look small and I'd expect they would have been pretty old themselves. I'd like to think that they're not still being collected but I'd expect they still are, just not for the UK market.

Stuart

[Tina]

Phil,
Does your aztekium have pure white flowers ?, its a fantastic plant, does it have a story.

Derek,
We would need to ID them all first.
Euphorbia abdelkuri, suzannae,unispina,decidua, dorstenia lavranni, pachypodium namaquanum & maybe baronii, avonia, haworthia

Melo matanzana, disco horstii, ario kotschebeyanus, retusus,pelecyphora strobiliformis, uebllmannia pectinifera, some old cactus ,? umdeave

[Paul in Essex]

We would need to ID them all first.

Not important, surely? Call them all echeveria.