[Trevor Australis]

Haworthias are my favourite pot plants and I have gathered what I imagine would be regarded as a 'collection'. I prefer to think of it as a 'selection'; a selection based on discerning the kinds that I think are the most attractive and interesting, and that would be appealing to Med. gardeners. So here is my gallery of 'hot' suggestions.

[Trevor Australis]

A few more Haworthias for your inspiration.

[Trevor Australis]

  And just a few more. Only 700 + variations to go!!! Enjoy. tn

[Trevor Australis]

  Most of my plants are from Paul Forster in Brisbane. His seed is sourced from several leading botanists based in South Africa - Bruce Bayer, David Cummings, John Lavranos and Edwin  Aslander. These seeds are collected under license in the field ie. the wild.

The names and collection numbers are significant as many of the plants are not established botanically and quite often change as diagnosis of the specimens proceeds toward a firmer placement within the concepts of Haworthia as a genus.

[Trevor Australis]

Even more Haworthias, beginning to sound like Victoria Sackville-West and the titles to her series of small gardening book?

[Trevor Australis]

Nearly finished - for today.

[Alisdair]

Fascinating, Trevor, thanks!
How does Haworthia springbokvlakensis get its intriguing name?

[Trevor Australis]

Hi Alisdair, It's almost (my) bedtime here so I can'y check right now but I think 'springbokvlakensis' is a place name. I will check tomorrow morning and reply at length if possible.

trevor

[westyboy]

Thanks for that Trevor

Thats a selection to be proud of



Roy

[andrewsloan]

2 types of Haworthia fasciata have turned up in my local nursery garden in Spain, HF concolor & HF Big Band. They are both very attractive but look very similar to your Haworthia attenuata (Zebra plant) and various other comments I have read on the internet suggest that most fasciatas are actually attenuata.

[Trevor Australis]

  You will be a brave gardener if you step into the world of Haworthia naming. It is a minefield of outright errors and mis-namings, and keen argument between botanists specialising in the genus. There seem to be two rivals: Bruce Bayer and Ingo Bruer. Each has a different view about lumping and splitting species within the genus and about the scientific basis on which this is done. Bayer has been the log time curator of succulents at the Karoo Bot Gdn in Sth Africa. He's retired now but has had, and still maintains, access to a very broad information base and field-work including much done by himself. Since the concept of the entire genus and how speciation is expressed within it is based on knowledge and experience of plant populations in the wild, and how the intergrade and relate to each other, I think Bayer is the botanist best qualified to propose a botanical schema for how the whole genus works, and to propose deliniations that are the boundary markers for the individual species and sub-species. It is work I find very interesting BUT it is nor for every gardener which is why I said I am a selector not a collector. Paul Forster, mentioned earlier, is a botanist who has done some field work in Sth Africa and Madagascar (on Aloes) and has a huge collection of Haworthias numbering into the thousands - all from offsets of field collected plants or from seed collected from them so he has a good perspective of what is what and what separates them. But as I said, that's not really where I want to go so I select rather than collect.   

[Trevor Australis]

Alisdair, Springbokvlakte is an area inland from Port Elizabeth. If you look on a map go iland from Pt Elizabeth and look for a town called Steytlerville. Springbokvlakte is in that vicinity. I am going to see if Google Earth turns up anything.

[Alisdair]

Trevor, Thanks for that (about Springbokvlakte) - a place name makes much more sense than my idea of springboks themselves having something to do with the plants!
And your reply to Andrew does show why The Plant List cmust always be a work in progress....

[andrewsloan]

Very interesting Trevor.
If you want to share your hobby with other Haworthia enthusiasts I would recommend Planet Haworthia on Facebook which has 530 members worldwide. People post photos from their own collection, comment on other plants, ask questions etc, rather like this Forum but just related to Haworthia. I am a member of the same group for aloes (Planet Aloe) and have learnt a lot from other members who are kind enough to share their experience, post photos of mature aloes and plants in habitat and help ID unknown plants.

[Trevor Australis]

I'm working on making lo-res files so I can post  pics here. This is a Japanese hybrid Haworthia called KIGANJO. I've no idea what it means but it is a very interesting looking plant and seems quite vigorous - hence the about-to-explode pot!