O. chanetii

Orostachys chanetii (H. Léveillé) A. Berger

This tiny species is very distinctive by it's size and long cylindrical leaves,
and comes from China.

Chinese name for the species is 塔花瓦松 ( Tǎ Huā Wǎ Sōng)





Not very demanding species, I treat them as all other Orostachys (strong light, well drained soil, winter protection from moisture) only
does not produce so many offsets as some other species.
Also not so often in culture, I was looking for it for some time.

I have to say that this is probably my favorite plant species

Thank you, Marko, for introducing the species! I like the bluish leaves, but not the fact it's flowering. Though Orostachys flowers can be quite impressive!

We had a lot of rainfall last month so all rosettes looked elongated.
I was so afraid that I will loose this one

Some fresh photos of inflorescence

What a flower. Tiny, like made of fine porcelain! Very beautiful!

Couldn't agree more.

Here is another pic of another non flowering plant that I got
from another source. Not sure if it's a same clone. Plants
look almost the same, but it would be great if they're different clones so I can have better seeds in the future.

Amazing looking plant I found on Flickr, posted by Nessy @/@...en travaux's

http://www.flickr.com/photos/agnesl/7255004386/

Picture from french forum. (bottom of page)
This plant looks quite big..maybe
I'm wrong

http://www.plantesgrasses.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19430&st=15&p=224970&#entry224970

Usefull link on Chinese page.
http://data.sp2000.cn/2011_cnnode_e/show_species_details.php?name_code=fca3b367-4f32-4295-be90-6e6d40bf1709

also with distribution map (might have to wait for few secs to load)
http://geoserver.ioz.ac.cn/map.html?s=4&level4=CHC-SC,CHN-HB,CHN-GS,CHN-SX&seas=

Beautiful plant with flower.
http://crassulaceae.net/forum/viewtopic.php?id=853

my flowering plant came as a cutting of this same plant last year.

Hello to everyone in the list! I am new here although have been following your discussions for a while. First of all, being a professional botanist I am really amazed by your knowledge on the subject and your wonderful collections! Respect! My interest to Orostachys comes from my wife (that is her Crassulaceae site at the botsad.ru). We try to resolve phylogenetic relationships between Orostachys species but facing difficulties with getting plant material. Collecting in Eastern Russia (we do live there in Vladivostok) is not a problem but China, Korea and Japan is a problem. I wonder if anyone would be willing to share (sell, exchange, whatever) spiny Orostachys specimens with known origin? I can offer any crassulacean species from the Russian Pacific regions.
Thanking you beforehand,
Andrey

Hi Andrey! I really can't express enough how much I'm happy to meet you and have you here on our forum. Welcome! Thank you for all the compliments you gave us.
I must say that I'm a big fan of your wife's page. It has the only picture of species O.gorovoii I was able to find on the whole internet.
Are you one of the authors of this amazing article?
http://gardens.narod.ru/goncharova1.pdf

I would be honored to help you with plant material and information.
I'm very curious about phylogenetic relationships between Orostachys.

Dear Marko! Yes, I am a co-author there. We have published a few more papers on the phylogenetic relationships in the family since then. On of these is a review of current state of affairs -http://144.206.159.178/ft/7903/643422/12902008.pdf The file is on Russian but it was also translated in English. I will post the English version and other papers into the net next week. As well as O. gorovoii picts. However, I should say that this species seams to be one more synonym of O. malacophylla. We did a population genetic study on O. malacophylla, O. gorovoii and O. maximoviczii and found NO difference between these species. In the same time O. paradoxa appears to be distinct from O. malacophylla assemblage. Hopefully the manuscript will be submitted by the end of this year.
As to the piny Orostachys spp.... We found that western and eastern populations of O. spinosa are quite different from each other and this difference is more profound than between its eastern populations and O. japonica. I am not saying at the moment that O. japonica is indistinct from O. spinosa but there is something to look at in more details. By the way, when I saw young rosettes of O. japonica from Japan, I was absolutely sure that that is O. spinosa.... As you know there is a number of spiny Orostachys species recorded only from a few places in China or Korea and it would be nice to have them in the analyses also. Generally, the more wide geographical range we will sample, the more solid results should get. Unfortunately sampling in China is somewhat challenging. I was there this summer but could get only one population of O. spinosa from Inner Mongolia and one of O. minuta from near Harbin. So, if you have some specimens from this part of the world and know their origin I would be more then happy to include them into our study. As I already mentioned, please let me know what kind of plants you would like to have from here?

Can't wait to see this and other articles. I was very confused about this
malacophylla-maximoviczii-gorovoii-paradoxa complex. I have a seeds of O.gorovoii collected in Hasan which I believe will germinate next spring.
I don't have plants labeled as O.maximoviczii or O. paradoxa but as I
can see on other people's pictures, both ''species'' are very similar
(if they are named correctly) and both more monocarpic than other
O.malacophylla.
You say there are no differences between
malacophylla-maximoviczii-gorovoii, but are they enough genetically
different to be considered different subspecies?
That's why I'm very impatient about your article.

Did you also had O.boehmerii? Is it distinctive from O.malacophylla? In culture there are plants labeled as O.iwarenge that should be O.malacophylla var.iwarenge, but I think all of them are O.boehmerii. O.malacophylla var.iwarenge should have larger rosettes. Differences between this 2 species are also a bit unclear to me.
Similarities between O.japonica and some populations of O.spinosa are very surprising. I would say that O.japonica is very close (if not only subspecies)
to O.fimbriatus. Sometimes, species O. erubescens is mentined and often cultivated. According to Urs Eggli, this is a synonym of O.spinosa, but most cultivated plants look more like O.fimbriatus.

O.spinosa is very variabile species and it's expected there are more species under this name. Specimen from Bongelia (not sure where is this place) looks so different. There are also disagreements about existence of species O.minuta. I'm glad you're using it in context of species and not subspecies.
Did you had them in your research? Are they a true species?
I'm also curious about O.thyrsiflora. Some specimens in culture look the same as O.minuta so I have doubts abut their label. I have unnamed plant from
Kyrgyzstan that look like true O.thyrsiflora (red anthers...).

It's very hard to get Orostachys with precise locality data and I don't have many of them, but I'm willing to share all of them with you next spring.
I also exchange plants with many people and I will inform you about new plants or point you to the source.

It would be great if you could include genera Meterostachys and Kungia into research. I got one plant labeled as K.schoenlandii with locality data this year but I seriously doubt it's true label. If they overwinter well I will try to multiply them and send you some next spring.

With you, Andrey, Marko got a soulmate on this forum! I hope you'll both enjoy it! And thank you both for sharing the knowledge with us!

Hi, Renata! I am also glad that I am on board

Dear Marko,
Please find the links to our papers on Crassulaceae phylogeny:
http://narod.ru/disk/64117240001.9b19f93f1978d4fc2c8d95f13375a53c/MolBio5_09Goncharova.pdf.html - English version of the review;
http://narod.ru/disk/64117207001.80d8bed766b6036f2ed8d91dd091192c/Crass_RBZ_1.pdf.html and http://narod.ru/disk/64117210001.bd4de27f92dfc52d10e7cc1f2a0591d5/Crass_RBZ_2.pdf.html - two parts of a paper on phylogenetic relationships in the family based on ITS rDNA data. Sorry, only in Russian, but the tree should be informative.

My wife also published a paper on Orostachys of Siberia and the Russian far East in Avonia (2011, 29(1): 34-42) but unfortunately I can’t find pdf.

As to our Orostachys photos, I should collect them from different folders into one place at first.

> I was very confused about this malacophylla-maximoviczii-gorovoii-paradoxa complex.
You are not along….  We focused on this group because we also were not sure what is what there. As I already mentioned, plants from the very next bay (they are quite common along the coast of the Sea of Japan) looks different.

> I have a seeds of O.gorovoii collected in Hasan which I believe will germinate next spring.
I don’t think that was O. gorovoii. The species was described from a limestone ridge just north from Nakhodka city and recorded later from a few more places, all are limestone. It has rather characteristic feature – cartilaginous leaf edges with numerous unequal thickenings at the upper part. Later the same character (but less pronounced) was observed in some populations from other habitats. Likely that is environment-dependent feature.

> I don't have plants labeled as O.maximoviczii or O. paradoxa but as I can see on other people's pictures, both ''species'' are very similar (if they are named correctly) and
> both more monocarpic than other O.malacophylla.
Your Hasan plant could be O.maximoviczii. This species was described recently from there (Byalt, 1999). After his publication (accepted by Prof. H. Ohba) we believed that everything growing there along the coast is O. maximoviczii not O. malacophylla. I disagree that O. maximoviczii and O. paradoxa are very similar and both more monocarpic than other O. malacophylla. Again, we believe that O. malacophylla and Co. are monocarpic indeed but O. paradoxa is polycarpic like other stoloniferous species. Later I illustrate that with pictures. We believe that this feature differentiates O. malacophylla-maximoviczii-gorovoii from O. paradoxa occurring only in Sihote-Alin Mountains and along the northern coast of the Sea of Japan. I suspect that Orostachys subsection Orostachys is split into two groups, nomo- and polycarpic plants. To prove that we need many more samples from Japan, Korea, Sihote-Alin Mountains and Sakhalin. There is a number of polycarpic species described from there and they differ from each other in some respect. In the same time I have a reason to believe that these are “young” species and still can cross with each other. In this respect naming them “species” or only subspecies or forms or whatever is a matter of belief.

> You say there are no differences between malacophylla-maximoviczii-gorovoii, but are they enough genetically different to be considered different subspecies?
They look like somewhat different from each other and there is some genetic difference (they are not really identical) but their relationship could be described as “a cloud”. I don’t see real boundary between their populations (not individuals!) therefore I would prefer to regard them all as members of a large morphologically polymorphic but still mating group. O. malacophylla is the oldest name therefore it could be O. malacophylla s.l. But again, taxonomy is largely a matter of believe.

> Did you also had O. boehmerii? Is it distinctive from O.malacophylla?
I have got two plants very recently from Korea bur they are not from nature and I don’t know their origin. I would say O. boehmerii is very different from O. malacophylla because of its stoloniferous habit. I never observed such stolones in natural populations of O. malacophylla. In the same time I disagree with Ohba who regards O. furusei to be a synonym of O. boehmerii. Again, stolones in the latter species are too characteristic.

> In culture there are plants labeled as O.iwarenge that should be O.malacophylla var.iwarenge, but I think all of them are O.boehmerii. O.malacophylla var.iwarenge should
> have larger rosettes. Differences between this 2 species are also a bit unclear to me.
We BELIEVE that the size of rosettes is not important but the difference in the habit mentioned above is important. The question O.malacophylla/iwarenge relationship is too complex for me. What I would do – just collect >100 specimens of Orostachys subsection Orostachys representatives from different places, do good genetic analyses, find some clear groups in this pile and only then start comparison of their morphology. This approach would result in more or less natural classification system of the group. Unfortunately this approach is not possible because of many reasons, first of all because we already have quite a confusing systematics and should improve it somehow.

> Similarities between O.japonica and some populations of O.spinosa are very surprising.
Yes, I was also surprised!
> I would say that O. japonica is very close (if not only subspecies) to O. fimbriatus.
Unfortunately, I have never seen O. fimbriatus and O. erubescens therefore can’t judge. I know that there is a lot of confusion with species names in the collections therefore I would not take these names for serious.

> O.spinosa is very variabile species and it's expected there are more species under this name. Specimen from Bongelia (not sure where is this place) looks so different.
We noticed different appearance of O. spinosa in our area and Altai. That was one of the reasons why we decided to look more carefully at the species. I hope such a look will result in many interesting findings.

> There are also disagreements about existence of species O.minuta. I'm glad you're using it in context of species and not subspecies.
Actually, for the moment I don’t bother much about taxonomy in this respect. I sampled one population of O. minuta in China this summer and should say that it is really minuta…. The plans were so small that I noticed them only accidentally. I would never say that O. minuta is a part of O. spinosa. The plants I saw were almost the same as O. japonica in our area but tiny.

> Are they a true species?
Too early to say something. According to the preliminary data O. minuta is as different from eastern populations of O. spinosa as from O. japonica. If the situation remains unchanged then I would say that all three are good species.

> I'm also curious about O.thyrsiflora. Some specimens in culture look the same as O.minuta so I have doubts abut their label. I have unnamed plant from Kyrgyzstan that
> look like true O.thyrsiflora (red anthers...).
I saw this species in Altai but unfortunately did not sample it properly. For sure me or my student will go there again for collection. We can’t resolve O. spinosa without analyzing his eastern (O. japonica and Co.) and western (O. thyrsiflora and Co.) relatives.

> It would be great if you could include genera Meterostachys and Kungia into research.
Indeed. According to Mayuzumi & Ohba (2004), Meterostachys is closely related to Orostachys subsect. Appendiculata. They used only one specimen and there could be some yet unknown diversity. Unfortunately getting representatives of these genera is somewhat problematic. I would be more then happy to include them into analyses.

Wow, a bit long message! But the discussion is interesting

I agree with you Renata!

Thank you so much for the papers Andrey. They are very informative indeed.
I can see you have put a lot of effort in research. You've also mentioned
doubtful status of genus Jovibarba in Sempervivum group.
Many modern botanist put genus Jovibarba in Sempervivum, but for me it's a non sense
because flower morphology is different and they also never hybridize. It would be great if similar type of
research in the future could confirm that...but let's focus on Orostachys first


You have put so much useful information in your post, but
after reading it for the first time I have to admit I feel a bit confused
Especially when you started talking about how easily they hybridize.

Thank you so much for your reply, and I can't wait for the new info, your pictures or even distribution maps one day.

Orosatchys plants in culture are sometimes very strangely labeled, and it's
hard to get the plants with any or precise locality data. If you grow Sempervivum, you can easily
get plants with named species, subspecies, form, collector, place, elevation, even GPS coordinates. Oros are a different story.
I can offer you only few plants with (imprecise) locality data you might be interested in.
Please send me your e-mail so I can send you my grow list and also point you to some plants sources.

Dear Marko,
thank you for your kind words! As to Orostachys hybridization, I wanted to say that O. malacophylla, O. maximoviczii and Co. do it easily. My wife grows them in the Botanical Garden and often we are surprised to see how one maternal plant produces 3-4 morphologically different seedlings. I assume their fathers were different. However, in nature we did not find two morphospecies/morphotypes (usually, each natural population is more or less monomorphic) growing in one place therefore the hybridization is less likely.

There is a genetic explanation for hybridization also. It is assumed (actually statistically proven) that species having many differences (not that simple but close to it) in nucleotide sequences of the internal transcribed spacer of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (ITS rDNA - the most frequently used molecular marker) can't hybridize. This difference is minor, 1-3 substitutions only, between Orostachys subsect. Orostachys (morpho)species. Different accessions of the same Sedum or Hylotelephium species differ more then the “species” in the subsection Orostachys.

In the subsection Appendiculata (O. spinosa et al.) divergence in ITS rDNA between the species (and populations of O. spinosa, that I know for sure) is more pronounced and I don't think that they can hybridize. And in no way the hybridization between the subsections is possible.

Problem with plants labeling is not new. You know that some Orostachys species were described from culture (shrine gardens, etc.) and that is the root of some of our problems with Orostachys systematics. I fully aware about difficulty with finding cultured plants with known origin and would appreciate any of those. By the way, Sempervivums would be also greatly appreciated. One of my student works of the analysis of phylogenetic relationships between Sedum s.l. and the genus Sempervivum is a part of this study. Ray Stephenson kindly provided me with many Sedum specimens (mostly from Europe and America) but there were only a few Sempervivums. We hope to extend our Sedum sampling in China next year but wondering across southern Europe is rather unlikely for the moment unfortunately.

My e-mail address is gontcharov@biosoil.ru
looking forward to se the list. I remember about the pictures I promised!

My plants also produce various seedlings very often.
Wow, difference in 1-3 substitutions is really small.

If populations of O.spinosa are different enough not to hybridize (and you can prove that)
are they on the way to be called new species?

Also, from the previous research I saw that genus is poliphyletic. Is it likely that
2 subsections will be divided into 2 genera?
Do you have any ideas how they will be called? I would say that species belonging to today's
subsection Appendiculata should keep the name Orostachys because they have pronounced spination.
It wouldn't make sense other way because if plants in today's section Orostachys would keep the name of the genera
they would be called ''mountain spine'' without having a spine at all. What do you think?

My friend from Czech Republic (and our forum member) is doing a genetical research on some
Sempervivums from Balkans. I can also connect you with him.

I'm sending you my list

Dear Marko,
Thank you for the list and addresses. I already noticed some plants I would like to include into our analyses. I will definitely contact your Czech colleague to discuss Sempervivum issue.

I think there is a chance that western and eastern populations of O. spinosa could be regarded as species but at the moment I have no idea what morphological character will characterize these species. I believe it is somewhat problematic to describe a new species without stating some difference in morphology.

As to Orostachys polyphyly, it made taxonomy of the genus quite complicated. It is possible to regard the subsections as genera but according to the International Code of the Botanical Nomenclature the name Orostachys could be used only for the former subsection Orostachys because the type species of the genus (O. malacophylla) is there. The new name should be found for the subsection Appendiculata. Moreover, the genus Hylotelephium should be also named Orostachys because Orostachys was placed within Hylotelephium but the latter has a priority over the former. I doubt that many botanists (including my wife) will like these changes.

Dear Marko,
I congratulate you for your excellent Orostachys collection. Can you offer me any place/nurseri where I can buy from or swap these plants. I wanted to send you a personal message, but I haven't got any pemisson for it. My e-mail address: acre@vipmail.hu.

Hi Kovacs,

welcome on our forum! Thank you for your compliment, I'm very proud at my plants. I've returned recently from a small bike trip in Hungary

Here are some useful links:
https://sempervivum.aforumfree.com/t3694-o-chanetii

I also swamp or give a lot of plants every year but this year I decided to skip exchange because my plants look very poor because of the bad winter, mealy bugs, marten...
My collection is at home in another town that I visit once a month or so, and I also wouldn't like to send you plats that are infected with mealy bugs.
Hope I could clean them up in the future so I could send you some.

Dear Marko,



Thank you for your quick answer.

I hope you had got good weather in Hungary for biking. There are too much rain nowadays.

If you will be willing to swap I can offer Sedums (and its relatives), some hardy Delosperma and a few Sempervivum or other rockgarden plants in reverse. If you are interested in them I will make a list for you. (There are some photos of my plants on my homepage: www.sedum.uw.hu) (The link what you wrote points only this forum and I coldn't find any nursury address here)


Best wishes

Pal

Weather was actually great! I will go again for sure.

I really like your page, in the future we can exchange something.
I'm sorry, I gave you wrong link. Try with this:

https://sempervivum.aforumfree.com/t1485-orostachys-links-nurseries-collections-botanical-sites