xLenoveria

Ajax - Discussion

Neither the origin nor the parentage of this hybrid is known.


The plant is sold as  Pachyphytum hybrid, as Echeveria (xPachyveria) Van Keppel 7575 and as xGraptoveria ‘J. Rundell’. Also known as xGraptosedum (?) 'Rosey Grier' in California.

 

What is it really ?
It certainly is a hybrid. The big leaves and their colour suggest Echeveria fimbriata as a possible parent.
And where to look for the other parent ?
The most striking feature of this hybrid are the sepals – they are very unusual in terminally getting larger !
The only genus containing a few species with this type of sepals widest and thickest at the apex is Lenophyllum.


In an article in Cact. & Succ. J. US (Vol. 65, 1993, p. 271-273) Charles Uhl reports of hybrids he has made involving Lenophyllum species. The crossing of red flowered Echeveria affinis x yellow flowering Lenophyllum acutifolium has produced a hybrid with a fairly pale flower colour, with sepals similar to those of L. acutifolium and also with distinctly outcurved petal tips and a faint midstripe recalling the channel found on the petals of many L. species.
That means the Lenophyllum parent is fairly evident.


Uhl suggests that Lenophyllum species may often be polyploid. He summarizes his experiments stating that “the hybrids … resemble their Lenophyllum parent more closely than they do their diploid parent. This supports a conclusion that their Lenophyllum parents were polyploid and contributed double or multiple doses of chromosomes and genes to the hybrids and that only one dose came from their diploid parents.”


So it seems not unlikely that the second parent of this hybrid is a Lenophyllum species, possibly L. obtusum or L. guttatum, and it would belong to the hybrid genus xLenoveria.

Intergeneric hybrids of Mexican Crassulaceae 1- Lenophyllum by C.H. Uhl

Many thanks to Rolf Warnecke for suggesting Lenophyllum as a possible parent and drawing my attention to the article on Lenophyllum hybrids by Charles Uhl.

« back