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Crested Stapelia vareigata

Hey folks, I just got a large mutated (fasciated) Stapelia vareigata and a thought occured to me while I was unpacking it, if it's mutated will it flower?
 
sorry to hijack but where can you buy stapelia? how do you know it is mutated swords?? if the plant is mutated than it will flower but the flower might be deformed a little.
 
Where to get Stapelia?

I got my first one from a Bachmans plant shop a few months ago - it may be a Hoodia or Huernia as these 3 families have the same vegetative shape but slightly different flowers. But in general I buy a great number of my rare plants off ebay with only 1 bad seller in all the years. Never had a bad buyer (yet) with my propagated plant sales. I urge you to check out what you can find-sometimes great stuff sometimes nothing.

How do I know it's mutated?
Regular Stapelias are a tall fingery type of plant (some like S. gigantea actually spread more than stand) but this one is a propagated clone from a Stapelia variegata which is fasciated so it makes these weird fans shaped growths instead of the normal tall fingers, once I pot it up tomorrow I'll try and get some pics. When Lilys get fasciated they produce far more flowers than usual (though slightly smaller than normal) but they are very neat to see but in Lilys after they go dormant the fasciation goes away and the following years growth is often back to normal. I don't  know if cactuses/succulents ever "grow out of it" since they never go decideous dormant loosing all their vegative parts.
 
It can flower all the same as usual and the flowers ought to be normal. The cresting won't leave but occasionally the new shoots will revert. If this occurs, you can just cut out the normal growth and it will continue on as a crest. All cactus and succulent keep whatever mutation they have and just throw occasional normal growth, flowering is rarely affected but in some cases it may.
The plant you likely have is Stapelia lenderitzaeii var. variegata f. cristata

The tighter you keep it rootbound, the tighter the crests will stay.

Joe
 
Thanks Joe! I shall makeup a new tag and do some online searching with the name you gave. I did pot it in a smallish pot as I didn't have anything bigger onhand - good to know it was a fine move to make!
smile.gif
 
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