Haworthia Hybrids.
(The article below was published under the title 'Bastard beauties' in Alsterworthia 9 (3) November 2009.)
Gerhard Marx
Many
Haworthia enthusiasts are somewhat surprised when they visit these plants in
the field for the first time. Those who have visited Haworthias in habitat will
know that during dry periods the plants can be shriveled beyond recognition
and even when turgid after rains the plants are still often covered with dirt
and have some scars from insect damage or trampling by animals. But even the
occasional plant that is clean and un-scarred in the wild is often not nearly as
attractive as the plants we have in cultivation. This is firstly because the
original stock material from the wild were in most cases already selected
plants with striking features and secondly it is inevitable that the most
attractive offspring of these plants would be the ones that became most
propagated and treasured in cultivation.
Therefore we should never take the material we have in cultivation for
granted as they are mostly far more attractive than the average plant
encountered in the wild.
In fact, by
selecting the most attractive seedlings and crossing them with each other, one
can breed cultivars that are so far removed from the general plant in the wild
that it can be hard to believe that they are the same species ! The photos below show the difference in selected Haworthia retusa seedlings compared to
plants growing in the wild.
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| Haworthia retusa in habitat south-west of Riversdale. |
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| Haworthia retusa. The result of selection and re-selection of seedlings with attractive markings. |
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It is surprising to what extent certain characters can be bred by cross-pollinating selected
plants. If one would select, for example, two plants of H. pygmaea var. argenteo-maculosa
that both have rather dense white flecks and cross-pollinate them, the majority
of the seedlings will have denser flecks than the average plant of that
species. Often there will also be a few that will be even denser flecked than
the two parent plants and should one then cross them again with each other when
flowering, you may get even more extreme dense flecking, until someday you will
get a plant with almost solid white flecked windows and which may actually
qualify to get a cultivar name.
The same
principle applies when one wants to create attractive hybrids between different
species. If one should cross-pollinate just an average looking H. splendens with a plain looking H. badia, then the result may not be
spectacular. But if you choose the most attractively flecked and glossy H. splendens with a H. badia with strongly recurved glossy leaves, then most of the
resulting seedlings will also have the dense flecking of splendens combined
with the recurved leaf-shape of badia.
My pollination
technique:
It was Mary
Parisi who brought me one of the best gifts I ever received many years ago whe
she gave me a pair of ‘Optivisor’magnifying glasses that clips over one’s head.
This allows both hands free to work while looking through the magnifying
lenses.
I use fine watchmakers’s
forceps ( tweezers) to transfer the pollen and my method involves partially
tearing open each of the flowers to be pollinated. Most Haworthia flowers open
very easily when one pulls the upper three lobes and lower three lobes apart
and then one can easily see the stamens with pollen and the stigma hidden lower
down below them. I simply take the tips of the pollen-bearing stamens together
in a bunch and transfer them to the stigma tip of an older flower on another
plant. Care must be taken not to grab the stigma tip together with the stamen
tips, but in most cases the stigma is situated well below the stamen tips. It
is best to move pollen from younger flowers to the stigma tip of an older
flower on the second plant. In most Haworthias the stigma tip cruves upward (
towards the upper perianth lobes) and one can slide the tweezer tip with bunch
of pollen along the roof or the perianth and move it slightly down to press the
pollen onto the stigma tip.
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| Simplified drawings explaining how to pollinate Haworthia flowers. |
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The photos below also illustrate my pollination technique:
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| Separate upper and lower perianth lobes to expose stamens. |
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| Remove pollen bearing anthers taking care not to damage style tip below them. |
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| Insert tweezers and press pollen on top of upward-curving stigma tip. This is done on older flower of another plant. |
This is how I
also do pollination between pure species in my greenhouse and you may now wonder
just how do I make sure that I know in the end which fruits contain hybrid
seeds and which ones don’t.
My wife has
an embroidery machnine and as a result has a huge collection of coloured
threads which come in very handy. I would, for example, pollinate the flower of
H. badia with that of H. splendens and then I would tie small
pieces of the same red thread around each of the pollinated flowers. I may then
pollinate another flower on the same H.
badia plant with H. mutica, for
example, and I will then use two pieces of green thread to mark the flowers.
This way I can easily see what fruit resulted from what other plant’s pollen.
Hand-pollinating
one’s plants in this way ensures very good fruit formation ( as the stigma tips
get really flooded with a whole lot of pollen!) and I found that the fruits and
even the seeds of plants in cultivation are larger and more viable than wild
collected seed.
A few favorites:
I have to
admit that I find some of the most attractive Haworthias in my collection to be
hybrids. I think that the field of producing attractive Haworthia cultivars and
hybrids has a huge potential and due to the rarity of these plants in the wild
it should be encouraged that more collectors should start concentrating on
growing and breeding beautiful cultivars instead of only concentrating on purist
collections of plants with data.
This short
article is meant to share with you a few of the best that I have been able to
breed so far.
1. Haworthia cv ‘Lombard Star’
This hybrid
is named in honour of George Lombard from Phoenix, Arizona. The reasons for
naming it for him are very valid, as he was partly responsible for the creation
of this hybrid:
During 1996
George Lombard visited South Africa with the main purpose to see Haworthias in
the wild. Both Kobus Venter and I took George on trips to various habitats as
we both had known him for a long time via correspondence and valued him as an
exceptionally kind and dear friend. We also knew that he was a grower and
propagator with exceptional skills.
At the end of
the trip I took George to Kobus Venter’s house and we used the opportunity to
look at Kobus’s collection. At the time Kobus had just obtained plants of H. mutica from Klippoort, a new locality
found by P.V. Bruyns to the south-east of Drew. These plants of H. mutica differed slightly from other
forms of H. mutica by having very
clear white facial lines as well as a few white ‘dusky dots’ in the windows. Unfortunately
only one of the plants were in flower and George and I regretted the fact that
we had to wait another year before Kobus may be able to pollinate these plants
and share seed with us. But then George noticed that Kobus’s plant of H. mutica ‘White Widow’ was also in
flower. The leaf-propagated ‘White Widow’ plant of Kobus was the same clone as
the exceptional plant at Karoo Botanic Gardens with large milky clouds in the
windows. This plant originated from Sanddrift, which is situated to the
north-west of Drew.
George then asked
Kobus whether he would mind if we pollinated the Klippoort plant with the
flowering ‘White Widow’ from Sanddrift and Kobus agreed and promised to send
the seed to us.
George and I went
ahead and pollinated the two plants and a few months later Kobus sent the seed
to me as promised.
The resulting
seedlings yielded many pleasant surprizes. Unlike the ‘White Widow’ that
develops the white cloudy windows only gradually during maturity, many of these
seedlings showed densely white-flecked windows from an early age already.
A few had
almost solid white windows and those I kept for further breeding.
Having a
special liking for plants with dense white-flecked windows, I could not wait to
cross these white mutica seedlings with other white plants like H. splendens and the very white forms of
H. wimii and the Japanese cultivar H.
‘ginsekai’.
The seedlings
of the white H. mutica X ‘ginsekai’
turned out very beautiful although they looked rather similar to some white H. wimii cultivars and I then decided
that I need to cross it with a longer and larger leaf. H. badia became a very good choice and the seedlings developed into
beautiful white compact ‘stars’ with the attractive recurved leaves of H. badia.
H. badia has always been George Lombard’s
favourite Haworthia and I then suddenly realized that the most appropriate name
for these silver-white stars would be ‘Lombardstar’, particularly because the
white H. mutica parents resulted
directly from his clever pollination efforts.
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| Haworthia 'Lombard Star'. |
2. Haworthia ‘Black Knight’
In
particularly the summer rainfall areas of South Africa it is tricky to get
certain summer flowering Haworthias to complete the flowering and fruit
development process. Some species like Haworthia
marumiana (archeri) and its var. dimorpha, H. wittebergensis, H.
maraisii, H. marxii and some members of H.
mirabilis have rather thin flower peducles that tend to develop wilting .
The peduncle simply gets a soft spot and collapses. At first I thought it to be
the result of a fungus due to summer heat and humidity but I am told that it is
a tiny insect that stings the peduncle, causing it to collapse.
This happened
frequently while I was still living in Grahamstown and it was always a struggle
to get flowers and fruit on my summer-flowering Haworthias.
During 1998
all but one of the peduncles on my H.
marumiana var dimorpha plants
collapsed and I decided to pollinate it with pollen of H. splendens.
The resulting
seedlings were quite beautiful and most of them displayed the beautiful dark
almost black-green color of dimorpha
and with the attractive glossy ‘pimples’ of splendens in the windows. These
glossy pimples gave me the impression of scutes or rivets on the black-green
armour of a fictional knight and the name ‘Black Knight’ felt quite
appropriate.
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| Haworthia 'Black Knight' |
3. Haworthia ‘Aluminum Star’
H. badia
stands out as one of the Haworthias with the most gracefully recurved leaves
which are tightly packed into a neat and compact rosette. This character is a
very desireable one to add to the ‘recipe’ of a hybrid, particularly if the
other parent is an attractive densely marked H. splendens ( GM 452).
One of the
best results I obtained from above pollination is the seedling I named
‘Aluminum Star’ as it has a peculiar metal-like color reminding of aluminium and
glossy pimpled surface in combination with the typical recurved leaves of H. badia.
I decided to
use the American spelling of ‘aluminum’.
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| Haworthia 'Aluminum Star' |
4. Haworthia ‘Chockwonder’
It was George
Lombard who gave me a plant of Haworthia ‘Chocolate’ years ago and it does
indeed have a very striking dark chocolate colour. It clusters easily and as a
result the rosettes stay small. But the unique colour made it a very good
potential parent for hybrid production.
I have been
using it as parent in many hybrid attempts and several turned out quite good.
The best in my opinion was the cross between ‘Chocolate’ and another hybrid which was the result of
crossing a very nice white plant of H.
wimii ( emelyae var. major) with H. badia. This is the same combination that Bob Kent used to
produce his series of ‘Bev’s Wonder’ hybrids. So, one could say that H. ‘Chockwonder’
is a cross between H. ‘Chocolate’ and H. ‘Bev’s Wonder’, although my Bev’s
Wonder was a ‘home-made’one by using the same combination of parents. The specific
plant that I used has the white and toothed leaves of H. wimii but the longer acuminate leaves of H. badia and does look somewhat similar to Kent’s ‘Bev’s Wonder’ called
‘Imagine”.
H. ‘Chockwonder’
has very attractive irregular chocolate island lines bordering glossy white
windows decorated with pimples which almost looks as if H. splendens may have been a parent !
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| Haworthia 'Chockwonder' |
5. Haworthia ‘Pink Nebula’
This is the
result of crossing a rather red cultivar of GM 447 H. splendens ( given the cultivar name ‘Marx Red’ by Dr Hayashi
with the milky white H. mutica from
Drew area ( ‘White Widow’ X H. mutica
from Klippoort).
‘Pink Nebula’
is very attractive during spring and fall when the pink colour shows up very
bright. During mid winter and mid summer the pink colour seem to fade to some
extent although it is never completely absent.
It is also a
rather large plant and like Aluminum Star it also inherited to some extent the
beautiful recurved acuminate leaves of H.
badia.
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| Haworthia 'Pink Nebula' |
6. Haworthia ‘Someno ‘
H. koelmaniorum (var koelmaniorum) has a long flowering season and flowers prolifically
throughout summer. As a result one has many opportunities to cross it with most
other members of the Hexangulares and
even with most of the Robustipedunculares
although the latter efforts seldom produce results.
One
successful case was the pollination of a hybrid between the small form of H. marginata
and H. minima ( both from Bredasdorp
area) with H. koelmaniorum. The H. marginata X minima looks almost
identical to H. mortonii.
As young
plants these ‘Someno’ hybrids had rather flat open rosettes closer to H. koelmaniorum
but as they age they seem to develop more semi-erect leaves and more
reminiscent of H. marginata.
The name
‘someno’ is derived from ‘south-meets-north’ and refers to the fact that H. koelmaniorum
is one of the northernmost species in South Africa while both the miniature H. marginata and H. minima are found very close to the southernmost tip of the
country.
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| Haworthia 'Someno' |
7. Haworthia ‘Kent’s Wonder’
I was one of
the first people to receive plants of Bob Kent’s well-known and beautiful
‘Bev’s Wonder’ hybrids. In fact, at the time that Bob sent these to me he had
not decided on a name yet and was initially considering to call it ‘B-Bev’.
Only later did he decide upon ‘Bev’s Wonder’ and also devided them into A, B,
C, D, etc. clones. By then I already had seedlings of the plants he sent me and
therefore I could not quite link my self-produced offspring to his A,B, C,D
etc. clones.
‘Kent’s
Wonder’ is a hybrid between one of the many ‘Bev’s Wonder’ seedlings I have and
a plant that is a cross between the Japanese ‘Ginsekai’ with H. splendens.
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| Haworthia 'Kent's Wonder' |
8. Haworthia ‘ Toff-O-Lux ‘
This is a
hybrid between a very white plant of H.
splendens GM 452 and the Japanese ‘Ginsekai’. It may be a good parent to
use for further hybrids as it would be very beautiful if one can get the
caramel-brown lines more prominent and bordered by bold cloudy white lines.
It is named
after a brand of caramel toffee that is no longer in production as far as I
know but which consumed a large portion of my pocket money ( and teeth) as a young
child.
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| Haworthia 'Toff-O-Lux' |
9. Haworthia ‘Tripple B ‘
This plant is
the result of crossing one of my ‘home-made Bev’s Wonder’s’ mentioned above
with a cross between H. badia and
‘Ginsekai’. Most of its siblings look almost like pure H. badia for some reason but this one stood out from an early age
as it was larger and considerably more rough than the others.
It almost
looks as if it has some H. splendens
blood and I have wondered wheher I have not made a mistake or a seed from
another hybrid batch landed amongst these. Yet, none of the other hybrid
batches have quite similar plants although some of the ‘Lombard Star’s look a
bit like this although not quite as rough.
Nevertheless,
it is quite a nice hybrid and its large size is a very desireable feature.
Tripple B
stands for ‘Big Beautiful Bastard’.
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| Haworthia 'Tripple B' |
10. Haworthia ‘Glass Emblem’
Over the
years I have selected the most crystalline plants from batches of seedlings of
JDV 84-15 H. pygmaea from Great Brak
River. The seedlings originally received from Kobus Venter were already nicely
‘crystalline’ but by seed propagation and selection, some results far exceeded
the original parents.
By crossing
one of the roughest H. pygmaea
‘crystallina’ with a very white plant of H.
splendens GM 452 some rather nice seedlings resulted, the best of which was
‘Glass Emblem’. It has the same rough sugar-coated leaf-tops as H. pygmaea ‘crystallina’ but with the
glossyness of H. splendens that gives
it a glassy transparency.
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| Haworthia 'Glass Emblem' |
11. Haworthia ‘Protorose’
This is the
result of crossing one of the best H.pygmaea
‘crystallina’ JDV 84-15 with H. ‘Ginsekai’. The plant is small and reminds a
bit of H. wimii although the rough
texture on the upper leaves is very fine and delicate.
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| Haworthia 'Protorose' |
12. Haworthia ‘Gothlet ‘
This dark
little rosette covered with white teeth is the result of crossing H.pulchella from Die Draai, north-east
of Touwsrivier with H. ‘Bev’s Wonder’. All the seedlings are almost identical
and the tray of seedlings looks like a uniform batch of a new species ! The
plants are obviously much closer to the H.
pulchella mother plant than ‘Bev’s Wonder’.
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| Haworthia 'Gothlet' |
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