OSSETIENSE

In 1935 this species was collected by W.E.Th. Ingwersen and later described in the Quart. Bull. Alp. Gard. Soc. Vol.  10 page 101 (1942). (Typus in Herb. Kew). An interesting species found on the Ossetian military highway in the Caucasus, growing on barren limestone cliffs. It has rosettes that are about 3 cm in diameter, quite dense with few leaves which are oblanceolate to oblong-oblanceolate, very fleshy-swollen to the extent that the ratio of width to thickness being less than perhaps any other species of Sempervivum yet discovered. Also the rosette leaves are densely covered with a short pubescence with cilia a little longer than hairs; colour of leaves is a pea green with a small brown apex. Offsets are produced on stout stolons 5 to 8 cm in length. The flower-stems are 8 to 10 cm high, inflorescence is small and few-flowered with large individual flowers, the petals have a median band of purple with broad white margins, filaments purple and anthers a deep red.

A very distinctive feature of this species and apparently unknown in any other species of Sempervivum is the mucro at the apex of the anther, this feature readily distinguish S. ossetiense from S. altum and S. ingwersenii, the only two species with which it might be confused. S. ossetiense is particularly distinct in the spring months when the rosettes are more open with the outer leaves erect.

We have never found this species easy to grow, being liable to damp off in winter, also slow in the production of offsets and not free-flowering. 

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