BCSS Macclesfield & East Cheshire Branch

Newsletter December 2007 - Look at my plant!

Attendance at our November meeting which we hold in Wilmslow Parish Hall because of the annual Charity Christmas card sale in the Library meeting room is nearly always a bit below par. This year, for a variety of reasons including illness and previous engagements the attendance was the poorest for a long time. The meeting, however, was hailed as very successful by those present and for this reason I thought it would be worth reporting on it.

As had been explained previously, we were invited to bring one of our plants which could be our newest, oldest, finest, worst, healthiest, sickest or whatever and tell the others a bit about it. We had seven mini-talks, All very different.

Philip Barker reminded us that one doesnŐt necessarily need to go to a specialised nursery to acquire interesting succulents. He brought along two examples of Crassula ovata (known to many as Money Plants) and which can grow very large. No, Philip hasnŐt taken up weightlifting nor has he just got a bigger van. What he brought were two quite different miniature forms of this popular succulent. He had spoken to Ray Stephenson about them and one is known as Ňcv. minorÓ but the one with redder leaves has no name as yet.

Harold Cooper brought along a fine bowl of Mammillaria gracilis with hundreds of heads (the naming fanatics have been on the go again and the latest suggestion is that to be strictly correct it should be referred to as M. vetula ssp. gracilis). It was thirty years since HaroldŐs daughter had brought home a single head from the Brownies and which had even survived being dropped on the way. The plant was in our exhibit at Tatton this year and it was nice to learn that from its humble beginning HaroldŐs plant contributed to a gold award at an RHS Show.

The usual question when this species appears is how many cuttings one finishes up with when repotting and this was asked. The answer was, not too many if the job is done very carefully but thereŐs always a few to be rooted.

Alison Cusick, one of our newer members was seeking advice about a very elderly multiheaded plant which she had grown for a good many years. It was identified as an Echinopsis and it had no serious problems other woodiness as a result of its age. Awkward as it might be to carry out, re-potting was suggested.

Alasdair Glen brought an example of the ever popular Elephants Foot (Dioscorea elephantipes) which he had bought as a small seedling from John Latham, the leading seed raiser in the branch in the 80Ős and early 90Ős. Sometimes the plant spontaneously starts into growth in the autumn, sometimes it needs a bit of spraying to get it going. This year, despite spraying and watering there was no growth until November and indeed one year it could not be persuaded to come into growth at all. On that occasion it didnŐt look as though there was anything wrong with the caudex so it wasnŐt discarded, just as well because it grew normally the following year. As an insurance policy, in case anything does go wrong Alasdair is growing on a couple of seedlings. This brought to light a suggestion in the literature regarding the best way to get a good caudex and that was to let it develop under the surface of the compost and make its own way to the top naturally, as opposed to pricking off the young seedling and replanting with the tiny caudex on the surface. Any comments?

Roger Hensman shared his Lithops problems with us. How could he get the old leaves to shrivel in the late spring and make way for the new leaves, to be followed by autumn flowers? Certainly a bit of a problem because Roger appeared to be doing all the right things. I think this is something to be followed up as next season progresses.

Phil Crewe explained that he fully appreciated that the evening was entitled ŇLook at my plantÓ even though he had brought along seven. The amazing thing was that although all seven had been acquired as examples of the same species - Lobivia maximilliana (or Echinopsis maximilliana as some would have us say nowadays) they just didnŐt look the same. The source of the plants was someone whom our longstanding members will remember as belonging to our branch, John Hopkins from Audlem, and John was undoubtedly an expert in Lobivia. The moral of the story, particularly with all the ŇlumpingÓ that goes on nowadays, is not to jump to the conclusion that an isolated example of a species is necessarily typical, there can be many extreme forms. So try to get to see a few others.

To close the evening Alasdair drew attention to his plant of Crassula ausensis ssp. titanopsis which was in the flowering section of the Table Show. When he first saw it, out of flower, two years ago he was uncertain what it really was and even wondered about a possible Mesemb. The illustrations in Gordon RowleyŐs Crassula Book dispelled doubts. The species was described in 1952 and the subspecies in 1996 growing in Southern Namibia close to colonies of Titanopsis, hence both appearance and locality contributed to the name.

A good time was had by all. Watch out for the next meeting like this and do bring a plant.

Alasdair Glen