J. hirta var. hillebrandtii

May 2011

Synonymes:
S. hillebrandtii Schott (1852)
S. arenarium var. hillebrandtii (Schott) Neumayer (s.a.)
S. hirtum var. hillebrandtii (Schott) Hayek (1909)
J. hirta var. hillebrandtii (Schott) Soó (1972)
S. hirtum fa. hillebrandtii (Schott) Konop & Bendak (1981)
S. globiferum [subsp. glabrescens (Sabr.)] var. hillebrandtii (Schott) M. Werner comb. nov. (20.01.2011)
J. hirta var. hirta f. hillebrandtii (Schott) J. Ježek (2011)

Could it be that the spring colour of this plant is bright yellow? I ask this because I obtained a plant under this name with a bright yellow colouration. It is currently very small, the grower informed me that it is rare in cultivation.

Bright yellow in the spring?! No, plants go yellowish because of the sun and if the plant is not coming from southern hemisphere it is most probably roting. Beleive me, I know it from my own experince. They keep lighter colour thru the winter and in the spring they are gone for good ... Plant shoud be dark grey-green with red tips at this time of a year.

There were about 10 pots with these yellow plants and they don't appear rotted to me. It would be a very big coincidence when all 10 pots of one variety would rot and non of several hundreds of other plants ...

I suspect that it might be a misidentified Sempervivum-cultivar, but I'll grow it for a while (if it is not rotting :-) and make a picture when it is a bit larger.

In the meantime I put var. hillebrandtii on my wishlist, it is definately an interesting plant and I overlooked it's existence untill now.

Thanks for your reply!

Addition: I obtained some lovely and - I believe - correctly identified plants from the same grower. It is NOT my intention to discredit him in any way and I absolutely cannot believe that he would misname any plant on purpose. I only like to figure out if this particular plant is identified correctly, since the colour gives me some doupt.

Send me the name of the grower by PM ... and I will tell you if it is reliable one or not ...