soculense

Joop Huyssoon schreibt zu seinem Foto: Die Pflanze habe ich von Ben Zonneveld erhalten, der sie wieder vom Botanischen Garten in Neuchâtel (CH) bekommen hatte als Sempervivum tectorum de Pizzocolo.

Folgende Beschreibung früher in: in http://acta-succulenta.eu/dwn/en/ActaSucculenta_1_2_2013_EN.pdf,S.128

Description

Clump:not copious, with few daughter-rosettes, isolated rosettes flowering without having produced any daughter-rosettes aren’t rare. Stolons are short, barely exceeding the diameter of the mother-rosette. As generally happens with Sempervivum, no stolons are produced during the year in which the rosette flowers, which occurs after a vegetative phase of several years (monocarpic rosettes).

Adult rosette: rather large, diam. 6-10 cm, exceptionally up to 20 cm; number of leaves variable depending on the individual (25-50+); symmetrically arranged leaves without any evident anisophylly(12). During the vegetative phase, the central leaves are often arranged like a cone,particularly at the end of the growing season (an inconsistent and variable character).

Leaves: wide lamina, with rather marked mucron; glabrous blades; non-glandular cartilaginous marginal cilia, densely and regularly arranged. A nice, often strongly glaucous colour, particularly at the beginning of the growing season and before flowering; many specimens show, especially on

younger leaves, an alternation of paler, glaucous transversal bands and darker, greenish ones; basal blotch from cherry red to purple, more or less pronounced and clear, but relatively constant withgood exposure; the blotch has indistinct margins gradually blending with the leaf’s glaucous colour. A clear apical blotch is missing, but some specimens with a good exposure can show a light beige apicalblotch, small and scarcely evident, mainly at the beginning of spring. Whenever present, the apical blotch is always less evident than the basal one.

Inflorescence: flower stalk tall, sometimes taller than 60 cm, hairy-glandular, with a “minaret”-like structure, that is, a tall stalk bearing many but short subequal lateral branches, distributed along the stalk. Such a stalk’s morphology is rather rare in Sempervivum, occurring with good frequency and evidently only in Sempervivum calcareum. The stalk shape of this houseleek clearly differs from the common shape of the stalks of Sempervivum tectorum, including the populations of S. tectorum nearest to Monte Pizzocolo (Monte Baldo). The typical flower stalk of S. tectorum is markedly three-branched at the apex, whilst further down, there are a few lateral branches of decreasing importance (acrotonous branching), whose number and importance varies depending on the stalk’s vigour.

Flower: large and markedly polymerous (often more than 12 subdivisions); greenish petals, pale andwith a slight pinkish basal blotch (actually consisting of thin and short pink stripes on a whitish background), with a hairy-glandular external blade; reddish staminal filaments contrasting with the greenish petals.

Possible identifications: although this plant has been linked withSempervivum tectorum up to now, in our opinion it more resembles Sempervivum wulfenii, both in situ and in cultivation, and it’s not easy to determine at first glance whether it is one or the other, especially during the vegetative phase. 12 Anisophylly is the difference in shape and size between leaves located nearly at the same level on an axis, hence with comparable age and function. Anisophylly frequently occurs in houseleeks in the vegetative phase during the growing season, Sempervivum tectorum being one of the species where this occurs more frequently and evidently.