The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021

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The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts   Issue 28 March 2021
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
2

Contents
6                Click to read   23              Click to read
Rhytidocaulon                    The Reich stuff
macrolobum                       Graham Evans
Justin Gilbert

7
                                                                    A print of Myrmecodia
                 Click to read                                      beccarii from the original
                                                                    description by Hooker, 1886.
Myrmecodia beccarii                                                 See Page 7
Alain Buffel

                                                                 43                  Click to read
                                                                 Mammillarias – some
                                                                 of those that got away
                                 27              Click to read   Tony Roberts
                                 Looking at Fouquierias
                                 Ian Woolnough

15               Click to read                                   47                  Click to read
Evolution now                                                    The succulents of
Ray Stephenson                   33              Click to read   Portmeirion pottery
                                 Carl Spitzweg                   Colin C Walker
18               Click to read   Tony Clifford
Some other succulents
Jörg Ettelt                      35              Click to read
                                 Hand-built cold frames
                                 Jos Huizer

                                                                 54                  Click to read
                                 41              Click to read
                                                                 Whatever happened to
                                 Stapelia glanduliflora          that Echinocereus
                                 Mike Cullen                     Peter Berresford
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
3

Welcome to the March issue                                                               Jenny inherited the plant
of the ‘Cactus and Succulent                                                             which was labelled as
Review’.                                                                                 S. grandiflorus, possibly a
                                                                                         case of a nursery somewhere
As always I have tried to
                                                                                         putting the label on the plant
provide a varied and
                                                                                         that it thought the buyers
interesting issue, but you
                                                                                         wanted to see. If anyone has
don’t need me to tell you all
                                                                                         any further thoughts on
about it here, as you can
                                                                                         which species it is then
look at our Contents page.
                                                                                         please get in touch.
We have slightly redesigned
this to give it more space,                                                              To see an example of the real
and hopefully make it                                                                    S. grandiflorus go to page 52
clearer. Each article has a                                                              of this issue, where it is
link (Click to read) which will                                                          illustrated on a magnificent
take you straight to it. I very                                                          plate by Philip Miller (1691-
much hope you will enjoy                                                                 1771).
this issue.                                                                               Most species of Selenicereus
In the previous issue Jenny                                                               have large white nocturnal
Nunn’s article on ‘Cactus                                                                 flowers which, according to
Flowers – do they make                                                                    Wikipedia, are usually
scents’ featured a picture of                                                             scented and are pollinated
a Selenicereus (shown again               Graham Charles emailed me to say                by moths or occasionally
here) which was originally                that he did not believe this was         bats. Joël Lodé remarks in his entry
captioned Selenicereus                    indeed S. grandiflorus but that it       on Selenicereus in ‘Taxonomy of
grandiflorus, (that is leaving aside      could be one of the smaller              the Cactaceae’ that the flowers are
the terrible typing error which was       flowering Selenicereus such as           ‘intensely fragrant, often smelling of
down to me).                              S. spinulosus.                           vanilla’.
                                                                                                             Sheila Cude

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   The Cactus and Succulent Review is a free quarterly magazine
   published in pdf format in March, June, September and December.

   Contact
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   © Copyright authors and photographers. The Cactus and Succulent Review may
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                                  www.cactusandsucculentreview.org.uk
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
4

                                      A hardy Opuntia growing
                                      in Norfolk
                                      These pictures were sent to me          garden. The flower shown was
                                      by Roy Holmes, who grows this           photographed last June, when
                                      Opuntia in his front                    there were plenty more buds. It
                                                                              grows completely unprotected, as
                                                                                 you can see from the picture
                                                                                   below, taken in the middle of
                                                                                     January, when it snowed
                                                                                       heavily.

                             A new book on Adromischus
                             issued by the Italian Cactus and Succulent Society (AIAS)

                             On behalf of the Italian     Africa. It is written in Italian, with an English summary
                             Cactus and Succulent         at the beginning. The photos of course need no
                             Society (AIAS), I am         translation.
                             pleased to announce the      The price is 40 euros for non-AIAS members, but
                             publication of a special     there is a special offer. The special Adromischus
                             issue of our journal         issue costs only 10 euros for all who subscribe to
                             ‘Piante Grasse’ about        ‘Piante Grasse’ for 2021. This year’s subscription
                             the genus Adromischus.       includes four issues of the journal, on average 200
                                 This is the second       pages a year, often with articles in Italian and
                                 monograph on the         English, together with another special issue to be
                                 genus ever written and   published at the end of 2021. Anyone who is
the first to include the plants discovered in the         interested can purchase the 2021 ‘Piante Grasse’
twenty-first century. It is illustrated with almost 150   subscription (50 euros) and the Adromischus special
high quality pictures and provides readers with an        issue (103 pages long) for only 60 euros.
updated overview of these fascinating succulents, as      More information can be found on the website of
well as with the account of two travels to South          AIAS                               Marco Cristini
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
5

                                        The unusual flowers of
                                        Cyanotis somaliensis
The savannah is characterised by a      arid regions of northern Somalia.
relatively warm and dry climate.        The trailing plant’s leaves have
The main vegetation is grass, with      hairy edges and it produces small
trees here and there. Among the         blue flowers (‘pussy ears’) in
grasses, Cyanotis can be found          summer.
creeping.
                                        These plants enjoy a light location
Joseph Dalton Hooker, a British         but do not tolerate direct sunlight.
botanist, was the first to discover a   They do not need much water, so it
Cyanotis, but it was Raphael            is enough to water them once a
Herman Anna Govaerts who first          week in summer. Like their near
described and classified the plant      relatives Tradescantia and Callisia,
correctly.                              they are best in a hanging basket.
                                                            Ray Stephenson
Countless types of Cyanotis are
known to exist, but C. somaliensis      Taken from the newsletter of the BCSS   Cyanotis somaliensis – the flower
is a succulent originating from the     Northumbria Branch                      shown is c5mm high
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
6

Rhytidocaulon macrolobum
by Justin Gilbert
A fascinating Stapeliad from Yemen

                                                                                     Rhytidocaulon macrolobum

M      y plant came from Uhlig’s
       stand at the 2016 British
Cactus and Succulent Society
                                        patches on the epidermis so it is
                                        not a very pretty plant.
                                                                               I suspect that it will propagate from
                                                                               cuttings but I do not have enough
                                                                               material to experiment with so,
                                        It lives on a sunny windowsill and
National Show and has more than         has a drink once a week, less often    barring an accident, I will not
justified the price paid.               during the winter. It seems very       find out.
At the time I thought it was a          content in my standard cactus          John Pilbeam’s book ‘Stapeliads’
chancy acquisition as I had read        compost (John Innes No 2 and           has a couple of pages of pictures
about these plants and did not          about 60% grit) with gravel top        and they are also mentioned in
really expect to keep it very long.     dressing and a layer of grit in the    Sheila Collenette’s excellent ‘An
Four years on it is still with me and   bottom of the pot to give good         Illustrated Guide to the Flowers of
the original two arms have              drainage.                              Saudi Arabia’.
expanded to three and grown             In the spring I intend to move it on
significantly.                                                                 I have not tried to describe the
                                        to a 4inch (10cm) square pot and
                                                                               flowers – the picture says it all. n
The arms are just finger width and      will look forward to more flowers in
deep olive green. It does have a        2021. If it is anything like 2020 it                     Photo: Justin Gilbert
tendency to develop brown               will be in bloom for months.
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
7

Myrmecodia beccarii                                                             Hook.f. 1886
by Alain Buffel
The Australian ant house plant, a curious symbiotic succulent from NE Queensland

T   his story starts during a lecture at our
    local cactus club, Lophophora, in Ghent
(Belgium) during the summer of 2018.
                                               To my surprise, I become the new owner of
                                               a spiny stem succulent that is grown in
                                               coconut fibre as a medium (Fig. 1).
During the coffee/toilet break halfway
                                               Someone from the local club board nudges
through each lecture there is a raffle where
                                               me during the break, laughs and asks if I
plants get a new home and owner. These
                                               have any idea of what I just won; to which
plants mostly come from members of the
                                               I can answer positively, “Yes sir, the
club who feel too old and/or sick to go on
                                               northern form of the Australian ant house
with the hobby and therefore donate their
                                               plant”.
plants to the club.

                                                                                            Fig. 1

                                                                                            The plant obtained
                                                                                            from the Cactus Club
                                                                                            in Ghent.
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
Myrmecodia beccarii continued                                                                                            8

                                                                                               Fig. 2

                                                                                               The distribution area
                                                                                               of Myrmecodia
                                                                                               beccarii in
                                                                                               north-eastern
                                                                                               Queensland is the
                                                                                               Daintree National
                                                                                               Park. This tropical
                                                                                               rainforest is more than
                                                                                               110 million years old
                                                                                               and covers an area of
                                                                                               894,000 hectares.

The fellow plant lover looks at me in            Myrmecodia beccarii was first described by
surprise but nods approvingly. Little does       Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911) in
he know that a few weeks after this lecture      1886. See the front cover for the original
I will be travelling for an extended period of   pen drawing showing the entire plant
time to distant Australia and, in preparation    without roots but with flower, fruit and
for that trip, I am at that moment busy          seedling in the first description. Joseph
studying the various interesting succulents      Dalton Hooker was director of the botanical
of that immense country.                         garden at Kew, near London, for 20 years
                                                 where he succeeded his father, (William
I have good friends who a few years ago,
                                                 Jackson Hooker). He was also known as a
after active careers with the Ghent police,
                                                 good friend of Charles Darwin.
emigrated to that part of Australia. My wife
and I, together with a few friends, will be      Myrmecodia beccarii belongs to the
welcomed with open arms in their                 Rubiaceae family. This family is widespread
wonderful ‘bed and breakfast’.                   across our planet with a clear preference
                                                 for the tropics where they usually grow as
One of the expected highlights of the trip is
                                                 shrubs or trees. Some well-known
the Kurunda and Daintree National Park
(Fig. 2) on the
peninsula in the
far northeast of
Queensland. This
                         I understand that rainforests and succulent
area was declared        plants are not an obvious combination,
a UNESCO World           but the explanation follows further in
Heritage Site
because it is the
                         this discourse.
oldest intact
rainforest on our
planet.
                                              European members of this family are
I understand that rainforests and succulent
                                              Galium odoratum (Sweet Woodruff) and
plants are not an obvious combination, but
                                              Galium aparine (Cleavers). Worldwide,
the explanation follows further in this
                                              perhaps the best-known and most
discourse.
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
Myrmecodia beccarii continued                                                                                           9

economically important plant of this family        The genus Melaleuca has about 15 species
is Coffea arabica (Coffee plant). All this is to   in Australia. Eight of these grow near or in
sketch where Myrmecodia beccarii is                the coastal areas on the north and
situated in the Angiosperm clade.                  northeast sides of the country. These
                                                   almost all have a thin layer of papery bark
There are two other plants from the same
                                                   around their trunks and are called
genus in this region: Myrmecodia tuberosa
                                                   Paperbarks in Australia. To complete the
and Myrmecodia platytyrea subsp. antoinii.
                                                   entire ant house plant story, it should also
Both of these species however occur only
                                                   be said that a related genus from the same
on the far northern tip of the Queensland
                                                   region in the Rubiaceae family exists with
peninsula.
                                                   two more species with similar
Myrmecodia beccarii, on the other hand,            characteristics: Hydnophytum ferrugineum
has two forms, a northern thorny form that         and Hydnophytum moseleyanum.
grows between Cairns and Cape Melville
                                                   When greeting our Belgian friends at their
and a more southerly thornless form that I
                                                   guesthouse, the lady of the house tells me     Fig. 3
will not talk about here. The best-known
                                                   that she knows from friends the exact
distribution of the northern form is Daintree                                                     By means of two
                                                   location where we can find these plants.
National Park where this plant grows most                                                         cables stretched
                                                   Promising for any passionate plant lover!
of the time on its favourite host tree,                                                           over the river, the
Melaleuca viridiflora (Myrtaceae), which is        The next day our friends took us to see the    vehicles that were
concentrated in the interior of the forest         beauty of the coastal rainforest. We knew      loaded on the
near rivers and also in the coastal                that after crossing the Daintree river with    ferry are towed to
                                                                                                  the other side.
mangrove forest.                                   the cable ferry (Fig. 3) we could find some
The online magazine for cactus and succulent enthusiasts Issue 28 March 2021
Myrmecodia beccarii continued                                                                                                 10

                                                                                                     Fig. 4

                                                                                                    A young Myrmecodia
                                                                                                    beccarii has just
                                                                                                    formed a caudex after
                                                                                                    sprouting and rooting
                                                                                                    the year before
                                                                                                    between the scaly
                                                                                                    bark layers of the
                                                                                                    paperbark tree.
                                                                                                    To show the size of
                                                                                                    the plant I placed an
                                                                                                    Australian two dollar
                                                                                                    coin between the bark
                                                                                                    layers (coin = 2.5cm
                                                                                                    diameter).
                                                                                                    Also notice the still
                                                                                                    caudex-less seedling
                                                                                                    immediately to the left
                                                                                                    of this plant that has
                                                                                                    just formed its first
                                                                                                    two leathery leaves.

trees in the parking lot on the other side of
the river which are host to Myrmecodia
beccarii.
Once there it only takes a few minutes to
find Melaleuca viridiflora trees that are
indeed overgrown with mostly young ant
house plants that have taken root on these
host trees just like other more well-known
epiphytes (Fig. 4).
Higher up in the trees near the tree canopy
I also saw some adult specimens,
presumably the parents of the seedlings in
Fig. 4. Also note the flaky bark of the host
tree, which facilitates the rooting of the ant
house plant. This can thus anchor and
grow into an adult plant where the caudex
can reach a size of 20 to 30cm (Fig. 6 see
next page).
Once the ant plant has formed a decent-
sized caudex, it will soon bloom. The small,
barely visible white flowers and the
resulting white, semi-transparent fruits
develop in cavities in the plant, after which
internal openings and holes form (Fig.5).        Fig. 5
In the fleshy caudex, through these
                                                 The first fruits appear on my raffle prize after it has flowered. Also
cavities, a complex corridor system with
                                                 notice the cavities (alveoli) that this creates in the plant.
several internal chambers is formed. This
Myrmecodia beccarii continued                                                                                         11

                                                                                              Fig. 6

                                                                                              A multi-stemmed
is the ideal environment for some ant          The next generation of ants can then grow      Melaleuca
species to establish their colonies in the     up undisturbed in these plants.                viridiflora tree with
plant where the rooms are arranged as                                                         a group of adult
                                               In return, these ants protect the
fungal chambers, which in turn provide                                                        Myrmecodia
                                               Myrmecodia beccarii and its host
food for the ant colony.                                                                      beccarii on the left
                                               Melaleuca viridiflora from any harmful
                                                                                              stem and the
They work together with the plant to get       animal species. This creates the perfect
                                                                                              typical paper
nutrition. The ants get nutrition from the     symbiosis between paperbark tree, which        sheet bark, more
plant, and the plant gets nutrition from the   provides the ant house plant with a suitable   visible here on the
excrement of the ants and parts of killed      germination site, and the latter an ideal      right stem.
predators of the plant. This symbiosis         hiding place for the ants who protect both
allows the plants to effectively gather        plant species from any invaders such as
nutrients via the ants from a much broader     insects and slugs (Fig. 7 see the following
area than the roots could ever do.             page).

  This creates the perfect symbiosis between paperbark tree,
  which provides the ant-house plant with a suitable germination
  site, and the latter an ideal hiding place for the ants who protect
  both plant species from any invaders such as insects and
  slugs...
Myrmecodia beccarii continued                                                      12

                    Fig. 7 I found this old drawing on the internet which nicely
                    summarises the whole story of plant and ant colony.
Myrmecodia beccarii continued                                                                                           13

These plants also have a built in sensor-like   contribute to the food supply of their host
defence system against climbing animals;        as well as helping to protect it.
even a slight tap or brush against the spiny    Further on we see that after a storm, (after
bulges on the lower parts of the caudex of      all, this is a coastal forest), the symbiosis
an inhabited ant house plant causes ants        between host tree and its epiphytic ant
to come spilling out. Most species of ants      house plant can be broken (Fig. 8). A
that live within Myrmecodia beccarii have       travelling companion pointed out a
no sting, but the rush of ants combined         Myrmecodia beccarii that has probably lost
with many small bites is enough to ward off     contact with its host tree after heavy gusts
any potential predator. So these ants both      of wind.

                                                                                                Fig. 8

                                                                                                An ant house plant
                                                                                                that has lost contact
                                                                                                with its host and
                                                                                                dangles from a last
                                                                                                root before it breaks
                                                                                                off; which means the
                                                                                                end of the plant.
Myrmecodia beccarii continued                                                                                             14

Further in the forest                                                                           Fig. 9
we see a wide
variety of trees and                                                                            Hoya pottsii can be
epiphytes such as                                                                               seen high in the forest
the fairly common                                                                               winding around trees.
Hoya pottsii (Fig. 9).                                                                          They are also in full
                                                                                                bloom at the end of
Myrmecodia beccarii                                                                             the drought season
seeds are not                                                                                   and the approaching
difficult to                                                                                    monsoon (last days of
germinate, as long                                                                              October in 2018).
as you keep the
temperature above
15°C and do not
overwater the
seedlings when
germinated. They
grow perfectly
happily in coco-fibre
peat and need very
little fertiliser to
thrive. I do not know
about the UK, but some years ago, one
could buy that coco-fibre in every regular          Literature consulted
plant shop or garden centre, nowadays I
                                                    Kapitany A, (2007) Australian Succulent
cannot find it anymore in Belgium.
                                                    Plants, an Introduction. Kapitany
I hope I have been able to give an insight          Concepts Publisher, Everbest Printing Co,
into the symbiotic life cycle between host          Ltd, China.
tree, host succulent plant and the ants who
protect both species against invaders in a          Moore P, (2005) A Guide to Plants of
continent that still harbours exotic life           Inland Australia. Reed New Holland
forms unknown to most of us. n                      Publishers, Everbest Printing Co, Ltd,
                                                    China.
                            Photos: Alain Buffel

 Fig. 10

 Young plants thriving in coco fibre in 7cm pots.
15

Evolution now
by Ray Stephenson

It’s happening now – speciation! DNA studies are revealing ancient hybrids

E  arly DNA sampling often gave dubious
   results regarding the relationships
between species. This was because:
                                              Now nucleoid studies highlight past
                                              hybridisation and even show the ancient
                                              parents of the plant in question.
                                                                                           Above:
                                                                                           a Sempervivum
                                                                                           hybrid
  a) often cultivated specimens of            In 2016 Klein & Kadereit (2014, 2016)
     questionable heritage were used;         showed clearly that 14 species of
                                              Sempervivum are in fact ancient hybrids of
  b) too few chloroplast markers were
                                              known species. Evidence from an
     used;
                                              increasing number of modern works
  c) allopolyploids (individuals with         emphasises the importance of climate
     chromosomes derived from two or          change bringing about the migration of
     more diverged taxa) clouded the          species causing different taxa to mix and
     results;                                 hybridise. Today in places in the Pyrenees
  d) molecular data of both nuclear as well   Sempervivum tectorum, S. arachnoideum
     as chloroplast were combined.            and S. montanum, grow together,
                                              intermingle, and often the numerous
Evolution now continued                                                                                            16

hybrids outnumber their parents and make
identification difficult.
The huge ice sheets of the last great ice
age not only pushed northern species
southwards to mingle with Mediterranean
species, their retreat resulted in many taxa
migrating to the tops of mountains to
become refugia, confined to scattered ‘sky
islands’. Over millennia, these isolated
pockets of plants (species or hybrids)
evolved in their own way. The same
happened in America. Arctic species were
pushed down to New Mexico and Rhodiola
still grow there at very high altitudes (2013).
It is not unusual for crossbred stock with
hybrid vigour to supersede one or both
parents. These plants puzzled early
plantsmen who were convinced they had
discovered a species new to science.
Praeger, an extremely able botanist,
described Aeonium burchardii, which is
actually a hybrid between the two most
unalike parents one could imagine: the tiny
perennial A. sedifolium and A. urbicum, a
monocarpic species which can be as tall as        been suspected for a very long time that       Rhodiola
a person.                                         the plant widely known as Echinocactus         integrifolia an
We now realise that many cactus species           grusonii has features one would associate      Arctic species
are allopolyploid and are the result of           with Ferocactus and chloroplast                growing above
                                                  investigations show it to be closely related   Lake Tahoe,
ancient hybridisation. Collectors and
                                                                                                 California.
growers often shun hybrid plants, but it has      to some Ferocactus species. Anyone lucky

 Aeonium burchardii
Evolution now continued                                                                                                   17

enough (old enough?) to have flowered a
plant will have noticed its anomalous fruit.
Ferocactus is an extremely difficult genus
to circumscribe, so studies are still
pending. Whether one should label the
plant xEchinoferocactus grusonii or
Kroenleinia grusonii (as proposed by Paul
Heath and Joël Lodé respectively) is still
hotly debated. It is stable and breeds freely
from seed and it is probably one of
hundreds of allopolyploid cacti.
It is also true that seeds of some
succulents can be transported hundreds of
miles to mingle with relatives, but perhaps
this is less important than the mass
movement of populations due to climate
change. Climate change does cause
extinction, but often over millennia a
particular species can end up thousands of
miles from its origin. The fossil coal
measures of the English Pennines illustrate
this well with Ginkgo and Metasequoia
(common as fossils in carboniferous rocks)
which are today found as living plants in
East Asia. A handful of small succulents
from West Africa which have been dumped
into Sedum are the ancestral stock of
Aeonium, Aichryson and Monanthes, this is         Sedum modestum, not a true Sedum but part of the ancestral stock of
probably a good example of species                Aichryson growing above Beni-Mellal, Morocco
evolving from wind-blown seeds. n
                        Photos: Ray Stephenson

   REFERENCES
   Dechaine Eric G., Brenna R. Forester,
   Hanno Schaefer, Charles C. Davis. 2013.
   Deep genetic divergence between
   disjunct refugia in the Arctic-alpine King’s
   Crown, Rhodiola integrifolia
   (Crassulaceae) Plos One 8,111-19.
   Klein, Johannes T., & Kadereit, Joachim
   W. 2014 (8 Dec 2014 online; Jan 2015 in
   print). Phylogeny, biogeography, and
   evolution of edaphic association in the
   European oreophytes Sempervivum and
   Jovibarba (Crassulaceae). International
   Journal of Plant Sciences 176(1): 44–71.
   University of Chicago, Chicago. Graphic
   text-fig 1-5.
   Klein, Johannes T., & Kadereit, Joachim
   W. 2016 (23 March online) Allopatric
   hybrids as evidence for past range
   dynamics in Sempervivum
   (Crassulaceae), a western Eurasian high
   mountain oreophyte. Alpine Botany 126:
   119-133. Springer Link for the Swiss
   Botanical Society, Lausanne. Graphic           Normally, Sedum creticum at lower levels is hapaxanthic (flowers only
   text-figs 1-2 (4 distribution maps).           once), but here after a very wet period, plants which normally flower
                                                  themselves to death have perpetuated
A celebration of cacti and succulents                                                            18

                                          A series by Jörg Ettelt

             Some other succulents
    ‘Even if you think the Big Bang created the stars, don’t you wonder who
                          sent the flowers?’ Robert Brault

I was introduced to CSR readers as the President of
  the Society for the Other Succulents. Up to now I
have written only about cacti. Yes – many members of
                                                            The answer is easy: in 1982, when the society was
                                                            founded all societies dedicated to cacti AND other
                                                            succulents focused on cacti. To finally bring the huge
our society have cacti as well! So why are we in a          world of other succulents into the spotlight, our society
society that includes all succulents, but excludes cacti,   was founded. So, let me tell you something about the
a family that is almost completely succulent?               ‘others’.

              Fig. 1

             Tylecodon buchholzianus
Some other succulents continued                                                                             19

Tylecodon buchholzianus
Let us start with a typical plant that grows in winter.
The picture shown on the previous page is a little
atypical. In typical habitats, Tylecodon species first
produce the flowers and then the leaves. If the
plants are well fed however, and the growing
conditions are good, they do not necessarily shed
their leaves.
The shedding of the leaves during the rest period is
exactly the characteristic that was used in the
separation of this genus from Cotyledon, in which
all species were previously included. Therefore, the
generic name is only an anagram of Cotyledon:
Tylecodon.
In habitat, with the pronounced dry seasons, the
species shed their leaves and then stand ‘naked’
for a long time. Many small species can then hardly
be found above ground. Our species here is a
mediator between the tiny and the larger, (up to 2m
high trees), which are united in this genus today.
The plant shown is no more than 20cm and will
only grow slightly taller (Fig. 1).
Contrary to the widespread opinion in the literature
that this species blooms poorly, my plants are in full
bloom in the autumn. It is not uncommon for me to
have 50 or more flowers on the stems. The
numerous flowers in every condition can be clearly        Fig. 2
seen in the picture. After the abundant flowering,
the leaves come – which, as described above, can          Anacampseros lanceolata
remain all year round if the nutrients are good. But
                                                                                    Anacampseros lanigera SB1179
it is not bad if you do not give the species any
water during the summer, then the leaves will be                                                          Fig. 3
shed safely. I water a little bit all year round –
simply because I do not feel like treating it very
differently from the other plants. Let us put it this
way: I try to give less water in summer! Watering is
intensified when new life, that is, buds, appear on
the plant. Then I water regularly but very sparingly
in cold periods. My plants stand in a very bright
position in winter, right behind the glass, at a
minimum of 10°C. So, the species grows safely,
albeit slowly.
Anacampseros
The meaning of the generic name is not entirely
certain. The most likely – and most beautiful –
explanation is that it derives from the Greek words
‘anakamptein’ for ‘bring back’ and ‘eros’ for ‘love’,
as ‘bringing back the love’. Plinius used it to
designate a plant that was said to have an
aphrodisiac effect in antiquity, but which is now
counted as Hylotelephium.
According to the latest research, the genus no
longer belongs to the Portulacaceae family, but to
the newly described Anacampserotaceae family.
Depending on the opinion, one to four generic
names are used today to subdivide the almost 60
taxa. Plants from South America, southern and
eastern Africa and Australia are then included.
Some other succulents continued                                                                                           20

                                                                                               Fig. 4

                                                                                               Avonia prominens

The focus of the plants grown by lovers of the genus is     group of plants is that the flowers open very late in the
on those from Namibia and South Africa. They have           day and then only for a very short time with small but
developed some wonderful features, closer inspection        beautiful flowers.
of which opens up a cosmos of their own.
                                                            The species mainly come from transition zones
Three beautiful representatives are presented here as       between summer and winter rain areas. In our climate,
examples.                                                   they are best kept as summer growers. They endure
                                                            full light and should be grown in as bright a position as
Anacampseros lanceolata comes from the Cape
                                                            possible. Only excessive heat is to be avoided! In
Province, has slightly more elongated leaves and white
                                                            terms of substrate, they are uncomplicated –
to dark pink flowers (Fig. 2).
                                                            something permeable with little or no humus is
Anacampseros lanigera (Fig. 3) is generally regarded        required. Species that originate from pure winter rain
as a synonym for Anacampseros filamentosa, which            areas are a bit trickier, they should by no means be
has a huge distribution area from the Orange River on       watered in winter, all others can also tolerate mild
the border with Namibia to the central Karoo. It is not     moisture in winter which helps them grow more quickly
surprising that a lot is still unexplained about the        which is especially useful for seedlings. Most species
species – new species are being described, old ones         are self-fertile and can be grown relatively easily from
are being brought back, all are more or less variable       seeds.
and the area in which one can find these tiny species
                                                            Overall, it is a very interesting group that should
is huge!
                                                            receive a lot more attention – especially as it takes up
With Avonia prominens (Fig. 4) we have a                    next to no space in the collection – most
representative of Avonia, which is often viewed as a        representatives are comfortable in a 4cm pot.
separate genus or at least a subgenus. The most
distinctive features are the more or less whitish,          Faucaria
parchment-like stipule scales located in the leaf axils,    I received the plants shown with the name Faucaria
which are significantly larger than the succulent,          graciae-hootea, a name that probably does not even
kidney-shaped leaves and cover these plants                 exist. For me it is very similar to F. felina (Fig. 5). All
completely in habitat. In the case of cultivated plants,    species of the genus are somewhat reminiscent of
this is not always the case due to the lower light          open throats. The opposite leaves with teeth on the
supply.                                                     edges have given rise to the generic name, derived
The wonderfully shaped fruit capsules are very              from the Latin ‘faux’ = ‘throat’, and species names
characteristic. After shedding the fruit husks they leave   such as ‘tigrina’ reinforce this = ‘tiger throat’.
a kind of cage (see Figs. 2 and 4) in which the seeds       All species are easy to care for and bloom profusely in
are visible, and are thrown out of the fruit cup by wind    late summer. The flower colour is dominated by yellow
movements. The seeds themselves are built so that the       but there are also whitish variants and when the flower
wind can carry them far. The surprising thing about this    tips fade, they often turn red.
Some other succulents continued                                                                                       21

                                                                                                Fig. 5

                                                                                                Faucaria ‘graciae-
                                                                                                hootea’ Mitford
                                                                                                Park

If you want to grow other succulents and do not want       shorten them and root the cuttings in slightly moist
to be slowed down by failures, you can fall back on        sand after they have dried.
this genus, which is also relatively easy to grow from
seed. The substrate, in turn, must preferably be mineral   Pleiospilos
and drain off excess water quickly. In summer they         The genus Pleiospilos can be compared with Faucaria
tolerate plenty of watering, in winter they can live off   in terms of cultural requirements. The generic name
their very fleshy leaves in a completely dry state. They   was derived from the Greek and means something like
grow into small shrubs with age as the leaves develop      ‘many points’, a good characteristic of the few species.
on the elongated stems. But all species remain             They are really beautiful representatives of the ‘living
relatively small. If the stems are too long, you can       stones’ – even if this name is often only applied to the

  Fig. 6

 Pleiospilos compactus subsp. minor
Some other succulents continued                                                                                                22

genus Lithops. The plant bodies are really shaped like      Lithops and conophytums may be more sought-after,
stones. Pleiospilos compactus subsp. minor (Fig. 6) is      but pleiospilos are wonderful plants that do not get too
a typical representative, but not the most prominent.       big (an old P. bolusii is one of the biggest, a maximum
                                                            of 12cm from tip to tip). They open their large flowers
As with Faucaria, the flowers of Pleiospilos species last
                                                            in autumn, which also often smell very pleasant!
a very long time – mostly a week, depending on the
temperatures. They pass a little faster in great heat.      Aloe aristata
What you can observe wonderfully about the flowers is       Oh dear, now it will be difficult to end. Aloe aristata is
how they get a little larger every day – the nightly        the old name, today this species is also found as
closing and morning reopening is due to the growth          Aristaloe aristata, after it has been shown that the large
process in the petals and thus enlarges them. When          group of aloes, which unite many plants from Africa,
they fade, these flowers can also turn a reddish hue.       Arabia and Madagascar, is not as homogeneous as
                                                                                             expected. It has therefore
                                                                                             been broken up into
                                                                                             various, partly newly
                                                                                             established, genera. In
                                                                                             the recently published
                                                                                             book on the monocots,
                                                                                             edited by Urs Eggli, this
                                                                                             is not followed, however,
                                                                                             Aloe remains Aloe here.
                                                                                           I have included this
                                                                                           species here because, on
                                                                                           the one hand, it is a really
                                                                                           small species, (up to a
                                                                                           body diameter of around
                                                                                           20cm), because it is my
                                                                                           wife’s favourite plant, and
                                                                                           because it can produce
                                                                                           its partially branched
                                                                                           inflorescence several
                                                                                           times a year if it is well
                                                                                           grown.
                                                                                           It is also an ornamental
                                                                                           plant that can be placed
                                                                                           in a very bright apartment
                                                                                           and is then an eye-
                                                                                           catcher. In the nurseries
                                                                                           and wholesalers, one
                                                                                           increasingly finds
                                                                                           selected cultivars that
                                                                                           emphasise the beauty of
                                                                                           the species, its symmetry,
                                                                                           the dotted leaves, etc. It
                                                                                           is easy to keep in culture;
                                                                                           use a predominantly
                                                                                           mineral substrate, regular
                                                                                           fertiliser in summer, and
                                                                                           in winter, slight watering
                                                                                           to prevent the old, lower
                                                                                           leaves from drying out. n
                                                                                                         Photos: Jörg Ettelt

                                                                                           My next article will deal
                                                                                           with the spring blooming
                                                                                           cacti – well, not all, there
                                                                                           are just too many...

                                                                                         Fig. 7
                                                                                         Aloe aristata
23

                                                                   Reicheocactus famatinensis, an old plant in full flower

The Reich stuff
Graham Evans tells a taxonomic tale of muddled monikers to the Nth degree

A   long time ago in a land far, far away
    there lived a small cactus. It was
presumably contented with its outdoor life,
                                                  coloured spines number around a dozen
                                                  arranged more or less pectinately and sit
                                                  on tiny areoles atop very small tubercles.
displaying its yellow flowers in the spring       The flowers are attractive, normally deep
and had not a care regarding its identity or      yellow with reddish orange tips, although
evolutionary heritage. The likelihood is its
descendants still don’t, but human
taxonomists have made a real dog’s                  The first person to give this plant a name was
breakfast of naming this sometime goat
elevenses. The name of the time was the
                                                    Carlos Spegazzini (1858–1926)
(early) twentieth century, the name of the
land was the Sierra de Famatina, a
mountainous region in the province of La          forms with mainly orange flowers are
Rioja, Argentina, and the name of the             occasionally encountered. The backs of the
cactus, well, thereby hangs the tale.             petals are dark purplish and the tube is
                                                  covered with abundant dark woolly hairs.
The plant in question has small dark green
heads, solitary, subglobose to                    The first person to give this plant a name
subcylindrical in habitat but clumping and        was Carlos Spegazzini (1858–1926), an
becoming taller in cultivation, supported by      Italian biologist domiciled in Argentina who
a fleshy, tuberous root. Its very short, light-   made many discoveries, naming over 1,400
The Reich stuff continued                                                                           24

taxa in numerous plant and fungus families         and it is as a Lobivia that the plant is most
between 1902 and 1925. He chose the                often seen offered for sale or in collections
specific name to reference the area in             today.
which the species grows, combining
                                                   There has always been controversy over
Famatina with the Latin suffix ‘ensis’,
                                                   whether or not Lobivia is a good genus,
meaning ‘originating from’. In 1921, not
                                                   however, and in 1931 the more
nearly as many cactus genera had been
                                                   conservative German botanist Erich
validly erected as today, around 90
                                                   Werdermann moved L. famatimensis into
compared to well over 300, especially for
                                                   Echinopsis. In between times (1926),
low-growing South American cacti, and
Spegazzini decided the new species
belonged in the contemporary catch-all for
most such things, Echinocactus. So, in the              The first change occurred as soon as 1923
‘Annals of the Argentine Scientific Society’            when the American taxonomists Nathaniel
he published Echinocactus famatimensis,
the ‘n’ in the location inexplicably being              Britton and Joseph Rose moved the species
replaced by a second ‘m’.                               into Lobivia...
The first change occurred as soon as 1923
when the American taxonomists Nathaniel
Britton and Joseph Rose moved the                  another German, Carl Hosseus, is credited
species into Lobivia, the genus they had           with publishing Rebutia famatimensis
created the year before in the third volume        based on a reappraisal by Spegazzini
of their magnum opus ‘The Cactaceae’;              himself.

 Reicheocactus famatinensis, a close-up of the flower
The Reich stuff continued                                                                                           25

So far, just an everyday story of lumpers      somewhat confused but for various               Reicheocactus
versus splitters in cactus land but our tale   reasons, including a mistaken belief that       bonnieae is taller
of muddled monikers is about to take a         the unnamed plant came from Chile, he           and narrower
                                                                                               with flowers of
turn towards succulent schizophrenia!          erected a completely new genus and in
                                                                                               quite a different
Werdermann misidentified plants of             1941 published the type species as
                                                                                               colour
Echinocactus famatimensis and confused         Reicheocactus pseudoreicheanus, the
the name with plants that would probably       generic name preserving Schumann’s
be better called Lobivia (or Echinopsis)       dedication and the specific epithet after the
densispina today, resulting in many            taxon’s origins as ‘the false E. reichei’.
misnamed plants in collections that            Writing in ‘The Chileans’ in 1971, Albert
flowered in a wide variety of colours and      Buining related his correspondence with
also caused some degree of confusion as        Friedrich Ritter, who had re-found
to what Echinocactus famatimensis, as          Echinocactus famatimensis near to
described by Spegazzini, really referred.      Famatina in 1955. Interestingly, Ritter
The issue was compounded by another            expressed the opinion the plant was not
name, Echinocactus reichei, erected by
Karl Schumann in 1903 to honour Karl
Reiche, a fellow German botanist who             The issue was compounded by another name,
specialised in South American cacti. The
true species belongs in Eriosyce sensu lato
                                                 Echinocactus reichei, erected by Karl
and is often sunk under E. odieri today, but     Schumann in 1903 to honour Karl Reiche...
back in the early mid-twentieth century the
name was confused in the horticultural
trade with another plant, apparently
broadly comparable in appearance but with      connected with Lobivia. Ritter sent Buining
woolly rather than bristly flowers.            a couple of plants and dispatched seed
                                               (FR459) to Winter, the celebrated German
Curt Backeberg realised the two plants         seed purveyor, as was his normal practice.
were different and one therefore required a    Frau Winter was Ritter’s sister and she
name. Following Werdermann, Backeberg’s        subsequently forwarded seed to Buining,
own concept of L. famatimensis was             who later observed the flowers of these
The Reich stuff continued                                                                               26

propagations and also the plants received        Schlumpberger made the combination
directly from Ritter. He concluded they          Reicheocactus famatinensis to resolve the
were not only consistent with Spegazzini’s       issue, at the same time coining
Echinocactus famatimensis but also the           Reicheocactus bonnieae for a closely
same as the horticultural iteration of           related species originally described as a
E. reichei. It was thus shown that Lobivia       Lobivia by Josef Halda and Zlatko Janeba
(or Echinopsis) famatimensis and                 in 1999 (but considered to be within the
Reicheocactus pseudoreicheanus (the false        natural variability of Echinopsis
E. reichei) were one and the same species        famatinensis by the ‘New Cactus Lexicon’).
with the former being the older name.
Over 30 years later, in preparation for
publication of the ‘New Cactus Lexicon’             The big issue for the subject of this article was
(2006), which would subsume Lobivia back
into Echinopsis, David Hunt used a                  that it resolved into neither the Lobivia nor
provision of the International Code for             Echinopsis (sensu stricto) clades but was in
Botanical Nomenclature to correct the               fact basal to the Lobivia group.
spelling of the species name to
‘famatinensis’ in order to properly reflect
the type locality.
                                                 So Reicheocactus, once considered among
So, that’s all settled then, more or less.
                                                 the most spurious of Backeberg’s names,
Echinocactus famatimensis is clearly
                                                 turns out to be justified after all, although in
identifiable, Lobivia famatimensis is distinct
                                                 truth not for too many of the reasons
from L. densispina, Reicheocactus falls
                                                 originally proposed. It’s up to you what to
completely as its type is either an
                                                 call plants in your collection. Echinopsis,
Echinopsis or a Lobivia depending on your
                                                 Lobivia and Reicheocactus all have their
point of view and Famatina is correctly
                                                 advocates. I am currently using
honoured. What could possibly go wrong
                                                 Reicheocactus because to me the species
now?
                                                 are quite different from other lobivias.
Well, in 2012 Boris Schlumpberger and
                                                 Whatever name you choose,
Suzanne Renner published a thorough DNA
                                                 R. famatinensis grows well but fairly slowly
analysis of the Echinopsis complex. They
                                                 in standard cactus conditions, perhaps
showed conclusively that the genus sensu
                                                 with slightly less water than for other
lato was polyphyletic and therefore needed
                                                 related species, and its flowers are a treat.
to be split again into segregates, which
                                                 R. bonnieae is more temperamental
included Lobivia. The big issue for the
                                                 because its massive but soft tuberous root
subject of this article was that it resolved
                                                 makes it prone to rot. Both species benefit
into neither the Lobivia nor Echinopsis
                                                 from occasional spraying as they can
(sensu stricto) clades but was in fact basal
                                                 otherwise be susceptible to red spider mite
to the Lobivia group.
                                                 damage.
At generic level the fix was straightforward
                                                 As a footnote, it appears there may be an
because Reicheocactus had been validly
                                                 error in Joël Lodé’s nomenclature in his
published and its type was synonymous
                                                 ‘Taxonomy of the Cactaceae’, as he uses
with Echinopsis famatinensis (as it was now
                                                 Reicheocactus pseudoreicheanus.
spelt). Any attempt at erecting a new genus
                                                 Following Schlumpberger, this name should
would fail because it would be homotypic
                                                 only be used if one accepts it as distinct
with an older name (two genera cannot
                                                 from R. famatinensis, which Lodé does not,
share the same type species). The problem
                                                 because the latter has date priority at
was that at species rank Spegazzini’s name
                                                 species rank and should not be sunk under
was 20 years older than Backeberg’s but
                                                 a later synonym. n
not valid in the resurrected genus, so
                                                                          Photos: Graham Evans

 C & V Cacti – Seedling cacti grown in West Sussex
 C & V Cacti have the following for sale (listed as lobivias)
 L. famatinensis, L. famatinensis jachelensis WR557a,
 L. famatinensis sanjuanensis WR557
 Visit their website, for new listings from March 2021
27

  Fig. 1

 The red-orange flowers of Fouquieria splendens
 photographed in Anza-Borrego, California.

           Looking at
Fouquierias
by Ian Woolnough
Despite their size these interesting plants are often overlooked

F   ouquieria is not a genus I profess to
    know much about, (even spelling the
name correctly is a struggle for me);
                                                  whip’ or ‘ocotillo’, which is the most
                                                  widespread, growing from the
                                                  southwestern US down into northern
however they are plants often encountered         Mexico. It is commonly seen across
in cactus habitats. Of the 11 known               California and Arizona especially and it can
species I have now crossed paths with a           also be found in parts of Nevada, New
good number, although they can be easily          Mexico and Texas. Following even slight
overlooked amongst ‘the other spiny               rainfall it will come into leaf and flower
vegetation’ that one has to navigate. They        (Fig. 1). It has long thin stems, hence the
are not best suited for cultivation in the UK     coach whip epithet.
as they tend to get rather big and straggly
                                                  A much more limited range applies to
for the average greenhouse. They are,
                                                  Fouquieria shrevei which mostly grows in
however, hopefully worth a mention as they
                                                  Coahuila, south of Cuatracienegas, on
are interesting and can survive
                                                  gypsum flats. This species is much more
temperatures below freezing.
                                                  compact (Fig. 2), has white flowers with a
The most well-known species of course is          touch of pink (Fig. 3) and beautiful silver-
Fouquieria splendens, the ‘desert coach           grey markings on its stems (Fig. 4).
Looking at fouquierias continued                                         28

  Fouquieria shrevei is a much more
  compact, greyer plant that blends
  well into the gypsum mud backdrop.
  This plant has had some rain, as
  evidenced by the round green leaves
  present on some of the smaller
  stems.
                                                     Fig. 3
 Fig. 2
                                                   A close up of the
                                                   flowers which are
                                                   white with a pink
                                                   blush.

                                        Fig. 4

                                        Stems of Fouquieria shrevei
                                        have beautiful silver-grey and
                                        orangey brown markings.
Looking at fouquierias continued                                                                                    29

Further down the Mexican mainland in the        This is a dominant part of the succulent
Barranca de Metztitlan, a contender for         vegetation and dense stands can be found.
bonsai growing is Fouquieria fasciculata.       Vying for the title of tallest with
Commonly called ‘the barrel tree’ the base      Pachycereus pringlei, which the cactus just
of the trunk of these is a swollen caudex       wins, it quite often leans over (Fig. 6) when
which can reach 60cm in diameter, as can        quite large. It leafs up after rains (Fig. 7)
be seen in Fig. 5.                              and becomes very autumnal after
Moving on to the Baja peninsula, the tree-      subsequent dry periods (Fig. 8). As             The swollen
like ‘boojum’, ‘cirio’, ‘upside-down tree’ or   Pachycormus discolor, a caudiciform tree        caudex of
whatever you want to call it is Fouquieria      that also grows in Baja, exhibits the same      Fouquieria
columnaris (previously perhaps better           trait there are some fantastic colour           fasciculata can
known as Idria columnaris).                     displays when this happens.                     reach 60cm in
                                                                                                diameter.

                                                                                                           Fig. 5
Looking at fouquierias continued

                                       Fig. 6

                                       A typical desert scene near Catavina in Baja
                                       where amongst the tallest vegetation there is
                                       Fouquieria columnaris, although often when
                                       tall they have a tendency to lean over as can
                                       be seen with the plant to the right.

                                   Fig. 7

                                   Close up of a Fouquieria columnaris trunk
                                   showing its golden colour when wet – the
                                   picture was taken in late January during rains
                                   although there had been rain previously as well.
Looking at fouquierias continued                               31

                                   Fig. 8

                                   Once in leaf, if there is
                                   insufficient moisture,
                                   the leaves on
                                   Fouquieria columnaris
                                   turn yellow and fall off,
                                   as here in March.
Looking at fouquierias continued                       32

Finally I am including a couple of pictures
of what is either Fouquieria burragei or
Fouquieria diguetii – in my defence when
these are not in flower they are very hard to
tell apart.
These were taken a little bit North of La
Paz in Baja, which is within the range of
both species, although F. burragei is a
much rarer plant. Fig. 9 shows the whole
plant while Fig. 10 shows a close-up of the
bark with its fantastic pattern. n
                          Photos: Ian Woolnough

                                             Fig. 10

 A close-up view of the incredible markings on
 the trunk of the plant shown in Fig. 9 (below).

 Another of the species that grows in Baja is
 shown here and is either the fairly rare
 Fouquieria burragei or the more widespread
 F. diguetii. When not in flower it is very hard
 to tell the two species apart.

  Fig. 9
33

             I would like to share with you a picture which first came to
             my attention in the mid 1970s, not long after I had been
             introduced to cacti and other succulents.

             Carl Spitzweg
             by Tony Clifford

‘The Cactus Friend’ (Der Kaktusfreund), painted around 1856 and depicted on a
postcard. Spitzweg often painted alternative versions of his pictures, and there is at
least one other version of this one.
Carl Spitzweg continued                                                                              34

The artist is Carl Spitzweg (1808-1885), a
German painter who liked painting
eccentrics, collectors and many who would
today be called obsessives.
These include, for instance, the wonderful
‘Bookworm’ (1850), ‘Hypochondriac’
(c1865) and ‘Mineral Collector in the
Grotto’ (c1880).
But I want to talk about ‘The Cactus
Friend’ (Der Kaktusfreund), painted around
1856 and currently located in the Museum
Georg Schafer in Scheinfurt, Bavaria, which
has a comprehensive collection of 160
paintings and 110 drawings by Spitzweg.

I have a Swiss postcard (see previous
page), posted in 1930, which reproduces
‘The Cactus Friend’. The sender has
written underneath the picture “Daddy
when he retired”, which probably sums it
up very well.

An elderly gent is standing in his yard,
surrounded by pots of cacti. He is looking
studiously at what is certainly a flowering
Mammillaria. Other plants shown include
Opuntia, Agave, Aloe and Echinopsis. A
watering can is evidence that the gent is
looking after his collection.

Spitzweg trained in pharmacy at the
University of Vienna, and was a pharmacist
and newspaper illustrator before becoming
a painter in 1833. It is amazing to discover
that he had no formal art training and is
generally well thought of: “He was
provincial in his choice of subjects;
tenderly, humorously, but with firm control
of light, shadow, composition, and detail,
he portrayed small town misfits, street
musicians, postmen, night watchmen, and
lovers bidding farewell”. He is widely
recognised as the most representative of
the Biedermeier (early Victorian) artists in
Germany.

Spitzweg produced another charming oil
on canvas, called ‘The Cactus Lover’ (Der
Kaktusliebhauber) (c1860) in which a gent
surrounded by bundles of papers is staring
at what is certainly a tall, lopsided
Mammillaria. There are other small cacti on
the windowsill.

Perhaps this is the same gent before
retiring? There is no sign of a greenhouse
in either picture – this may tell us           ‘The Cactus Lover’ (Der Kaktusliebhauber) (c1860)
something about the cultivation methods in     Is the cactus lover depicted Carl Spitzweg himself?
19th century Germany. n
35

                                                                                                Fig. 1

                                                                                                Two of the
                                                                                                finished cold

Hand-built
                                                                                                frames.
                                                                                                Note the zinc half

cold frames
                                                                                                gutter along the
                                                                                                top of the frame
                                                                                                on the right,
                                                                                                replaced by a pvc
                                                                                                gutter on the cold
                                                                                                frame on the left.
by Jos Huizer                                                                                   One out of every
                                                                                                three panes is
Growing a remarkable cactus collection in a series of hand-built                                propped open
                                                                                                with angle
cold frames                                                                                     brackets.

A   s did many people, I started with a
    small greenhouse when I was a
teenager. I bought plants, got cuttings and
                                              cacti. The size was modest (3x4m) and it
                                              was going to be heated with a propane
                                              heater.
sowed seeds. Pretty soon the greenhouse       The first winter it turned out that I could not
was full, and I had the choice to stop,       keep the greenhouse frost free with the
specialise or expand. As my mother’s back     heater. What’s more, the bottle was empty
garden was already filled with the            within a week. So what now?
greenhouse (which was heated), I looked
elsewhere.                                    After reading some articles in the German
                                              magazine KuaS, I decided that growing
At the other end of town I could get an       cacti without heat could be done. And
allotment. Whereas most of the people had     pretty soon the greenhouse was full. So
vegetables or fruit (and some chickens), I    now I was planning my cold frame (the first
planned to put a greenhouse there with my     of five!).
Hand-built cold frames continued                                                                                   36

                                                                                               Fig. 2

                                                                                               Under
For materials I had to look for a local        Next came the beams to hold the top. They       construction.
supplier. After much searching, I found one.   were put in a sloping position (Figs. 2 and     The beams to hold
He could supply me with foundations            3), and attached to the horizontal beams        the top were put
(concrete sleepers, 10x10x90cm), wooden        with angle brackets of about 5x5 cm. The        in a sloping
beams (5x10cm), glass bars (used to build      top of those sloping beams held the upper       position and
                                                                                               attached to the
wooden greenhouses in the ‘old’ days) and      horizontal beam, on which the wooden
                                                                                               horizontal beams
wooden-framed casement windows (a              frames would rest. On top of that horizontal    with angle
wooden frame of about 80x150cm with a          beam came a plank, and on top of that a         brackets.
glass pane, but I use the word frame, since    zinc ‘half pipe’ to stop rain coming in from
it’s much shorter to write).                   the top and also to protect from the wind
                                               (Fig. 1). Later I used a pvc gutter (the cold
I would dig the foundation about 70cm into
                                               frame on the left in Fig. 1).
the ground, and put the wooden beams
horizontally on top of them to lay out the      The bottom of the wooden frames was
base. The wooden                                                       secured with three
beams would be                                                         screws, each with a
fixed to the                                                           closed eye at the
foundation with long         Essentially   the cold   frames           end. Two of those
                                                                       went into the
screws and plugs.            were just greenhouses                     horizontal beam, one
The space under the
wooden beams I               without  walls.                           in the frame. A long
would close with                                                       nail (15cm) would
vertical pavement                                                      then do the trick to
tiles of 30x30x5 cm.                                                   stop the frames from
                                                sliding down. In the summer I wanted my
The size of the first cold frame was            panes to open, so one out of every three
14.4x2.45m. Inside I had a space of             panes had a long angle bracket (20x20cm),
14.2x2.2 m. That would last me some years       fixed to the frame with screws. In
(not!).                                         summertime I would put a
Hand-built cold frames continued                                                                                37

                                                                                           Fig. 3

                                                                                           The finished
nail through the end opening of the angle     pair of sloping beams, fixed with nuts and   construction.
bracket and into the horizontal beam.         bolts. You can see the strips in             Note the strip of
(See Fig. 1.)                                 Figs 2 and 3.                                aluminium
To prevent sagging I had two thin strips of   The ends were closed with glass bars and     between the two
aluminium, about 60cm long, between each      glass, and had small windows which were      sloping beams.

                                                                                           Fig. 4

                                                                                           The small
                                                                                           windows were
                                                                                           always open,
                                                                                           except during very
                                                                                           cold weather.
Hand-built cold frames continued                                                                                   38

                                                                                              Fig. 5

                                                                                              All my plants were
always open, except during very cold           All my plants were grown in trays of           grown in trays of
weather (think of temperatures below           60x40cm, no holes in the bottom (if there      60x40cm. On the
–6°C). (See Fig. 4.) Essentially the cold      were, I used plastic to make it waterproof).   bottom I used a
frames were just greenhouses without           On the bottom I used a layer of sand, to       layer of sand, to
walls.                                         plant the pots as level as I could get.        plant the pots as
                                               (See Fig. 5.)                                  level as I could
When growing in cold frames without heat,                                                     get.
it is very important to separate the soil      I could squeeze 70-74 round 5.5cm pots
inside from the soil outside to prevent        into one tray, depending on the tray. Bigger
moisture build-up and the growing of           plants would go into square pots (7, 11 or
weeds inside the cold frame. I used pond       13cm). Even bigger plants went into round
lining for that, so the soil could dry out     pots, but I had not many of those at that
completely! The pond lining would stretch      time. (See Fig. 3.)
from one side of the cold frame to the         The first years I would put all my cacti on
other, and from the beginning to the end.      shelves in the greenhouse in November,
Since the soil was somewhat clayish, it        and back into the cold frame in spring. But
would take me several weeks to break the       that became too much of a problem
dried out clay into fine soil, so the ground   because of the number of plants, so I
inside could be made level.                    decided to leave them in the cold frames.
Hand-built cold frames continued                                                                                   39

(See Fig. 4.) Three of those Oreocereus are   had to wait. As the ditch water was slightly
still with me. But I had to insulate!         alkaline, I added a minute amount of
                                              diluted sulphuric acid to it, about 3ml of a
So I made some sort of net from electrical
                                              10% solution for every 10 litres of water. I
wire inside the cold frame, and I would put
                                              also used some fertiliser (about 15-20-25)
bubble wrap on top of that in November,
                                              in ½ gram per litre. I watered every four
and remove the bubble wrap and the wire
                                              weeks, if the weather was good.
in spring (usually the end of March). Very
strenuous task, but it worked out quite       Remember, in cold frames there is much
nicely.                                       more dew than in greenhouses, and that
                                              must be taken into account. The latest
I watered mostly in May for the first time.
                                              watering was half way through September,
My water came from a ditch, and I was
                                              but sometimes much earlier, again
depending on high summer water tables for
                                              depending on the water.
the water. When that came late, my plants
                                                                                              Figs. 6 & 7

                                                                                             Some of the many
                                                                                             plants growing
                                                                                             successfully in the
                                                                                             carefully
                                                                                             constructed cold
                                                                                             frames.
Hand-built cold frames continued                                                                    40

I used to use a potting soil mixture (there is   The advantage is that a cold frame can
no John Innes in Holland) of about 3 part        house a number of plants which react very
potting soil and 1 part coarse sand.             well to intense light (much closer to the
But as the potting soil quality got worse        glass). You do not usually need permits, (at
over the years (to the point that it burnt       least not in Holland), if you stay below 1m
away roots, even of leafy house plants), I       in height, so you can build them on an
switched to a mineral soil (pumice, with         allotment, which I did. The costs are
some sand and clay added, because the            usually lower than those of a greenhouse
first grade was quite coarse). Later I had a     with the same space and you are much
finer grade (1-8 mm), which I am still using     less at risk during storms, because the
today. Some of the plants are still in the       cold frames are nearer to the ground.
original pot, (the big pots in Fig. 3), and      In the end my wooden frames deteriorated
grow and flower every year.                      to the extent that I could no longer apply
In the summer, I had to whiten my panes          my bubble wrap, because the wood and
with some sort of chalk to protect the           the glass would break. In my last year
plants. (See Fig. 1.) Without it my plants       (2012) the temperatures at the allotment
would cook. It lowered the temperatures          dropped down to –19°C, and inside the
enough for my plants to survive. It can get      cold frames to –12°C. The cold weather
very hot in cold frames, and because of the      lasted for two weeks in February, with the
lower volume compared with a greenhouse
it also heats up more quickly.
With this much space (I ended up with five         ...I
                                                     grew my plants in cold frames from 1988 till
cold frames, and a total of about 200
square metres of glass), the number of             2012, so for more than 20 years.
cacti I had exploded. Not everything could
be grown, but a lot of plants did very well.
Because of the overwintering of the plants
                                                 cold frames buried under about 10cm of
in the cold frame, and applying bubble
                                                 snow. I lost quite a lot of plants, but even
wrap as well, it was very important that all
                                                 at those temperatures, the number of
old flowers had to be removed by
                                                 plants that stayed alive was enormous.
November. Which was a problem for those
plants that insisted on flowering in late        Later that year I moved with the family to a
October, such as some lobivias.                  house with a greenhouse big enough to
For me the downside of growing in cold           accommodate all my plants. But I grew my
frames was the intense labour with               plants in cold frames from 1988 till 2012,
watering, removing old flowers and               so for more than 20 years. n
applying/removing the bubble wrap. Also                                      Photos: Jos Huizer
the whitening of the glass to prevent
cooking hinders the view on the plants, I
had to remove a pane to see my plants.           For a list of genera Jos grew successfully
And of course during rainy weather I could       see ‘Growing in cold frames’ Cactus and
not open any panes.                              Succulent Review, Issue 26, September 2020.
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