By Pam Schnebelen – Ficus is a large genus of woody trees, shrubs and vines in the family Moraceae. For those of us who collect plants with weird and unusual shapes, these plants are wonderful subjects. They grow quickly and respond well to pruning and shaping. …
By Bob Williams – A signature plant of the Henry Shaw Cactus and Succulent Society is “Bad Hair Day,” Pam Schnebelen’s Fockea edulis. It is pictured in our show and sale ad, and people come to our show in part to see this plant. For the last of the four plant groups in my ongoing experiment examining the effect of pot size …
By Pam Schnebelen – In August, we looked at the stapeliad group of the family Asclepiadaceae. These plants are all stem succulents with thick, soft and juicy branches. This month, we will focus on a different group from the milkweed family – the genus Fockea. Fockeas produce both thick stems and twining vines …
By Chris Deem – Animism was a set of beliefs from a more innocent time. It was a time of nature spirits. These spirits were seldom seen, but they were known in many lands. They were the souls of the waters and the winds, the souls of the plants and the animals. A xerophyte is a plant that has evolved to survive in a habitat …
By Marty Altepeter – Charles Fockea (1802-1856) was a Dutch lawyer, botanist and ethnologist. He had a fairly prominent career as a botanist, but I do not get the impression he spent much time as a lawyer. A number of plant species have been named, by others, in his honor. Fockea crispa plants are found only in the Little Karoo …
By Barbara Gardner – Fockea crispa is one of the most famous caudiciforms from a historical perspective. Sometime after 1780, an expedition was led to the western cape area of South Africa to find new and exotic plants for Emperor Joseph II of Austria. Fockea crispa was one of the exciting new plants discovered. …
By Donna J. Hess – In July, at my first Henry Shaw Cactus and Succulent Society meeting, I was the lucky recipient of the Plant of the Month. The plant I received – Fockea edulis – is native to South Africa and southern Africa. Fockea edulis is one of the species of the Asclepiadaceae or the milkweed family. The underground caudices …
By Pam Schnebelen – The family Fouquieriaceae, the Ocotillo family, has one genus: Fouquieria. Included in the genus are a dozen species that include some of the most wonderfully bizarre plants in North America. These stem succulent and semisucculent trees are native to hot regions of the southwestern United States, …
By Chris Deem – It was a sunny Tuesday morning in the first week of August. The first of three daisylike flowers had opened. The newly born flower had a regal purplish coloring, highlighted by the sunshine, on each glossy petal. At the center of the flower, soft, golden pollen covered the golden and pale ivory bases of the petals. …
Text and Photos by Nikki Murdick – This brief article is an introduction to a fascinating group of plants from South Africa – the gasterias. Gasterias are a group of popular, undemanding and easy to grow succulent plants that are endemic to South Africa. The name Gasteria comes from the Greek word “gaster,” which means stomach and refers to the bulbous shape of some of the flowers. …