Beginnings. Kalanchoe daigremontiana, Devil's Backbone, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
It's been dark winter weather here in Amsterdam. Now and then I'd escape it in the Glass Houses of the Hortus Botanicus. There I've been following the flower growth of Devil's Backbone, Kalanchoe daigremontiana. I'd feared not to see it truly blossom before I'm off to warmer climes, but Lo and Behold, this morning a first bud popped. Here it is, and no doubt the cluster will soon be in full glory!
This Kalanchoe was named for the great Succulent experts in France of the early part of the twentieth century, Georges Louis Daigremont (1844-?) and his wife Jeanne Vaucher (1856-1941) in 1914.
The plant had been found in July 1910 in south-western Madagascar in the mountains down from which flows the Onilahy River by Joseph Marie Henri Alfred Perrier de la Bâthie (1873-1958). Since 1896 he'd devoted his life to Madagascar's nature, botany but also zoology, returning to France only intermittently.
This is truly a fascinating plant not least for the way it propagates. That's done vegetatively by little offshoots from the succulent folio's edges (see inset). Our Plant is not particularly home-fast and it propagates in all tropical areas of its liking. Thus it's naturalised in many parts of the world.
Watch out, though. It's very poisonous.
Beginnings. Kalanchoe daigremontiana, Devil's Backbone, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
It's been dark winter weather here in Amsterdam. Now and then I'd escape it in the Glass Houses of the Hortus Botanicus. There I've been following the flower growth of Devil's Backbone, Kalanchoe daigremontiana. I'd feared not to see it truly blossom before I'm off to warmer climes, but Lo and Behold, this morning a first bud popped. Here it is, and no doubt the cluster will soon be in full glory!
This Kalanchoe was named for the great Succulent experts in France of the early part of the twentieth century, Georges Louis Daigremont (1844-?) and his wife Jeanne Vaucher (1856-1941) in 1914.
The plant had been found in July 1910 in south-western Madagascar in the mountains down from which flows the Onilahy River by Joseph Marie Henri Alfred Perrier de la Bâthie (1873-1958). Since 1896 he'd devoted his life to Madagascar's nature, botany but also zoology, returning to France only intermittently.
This is truly a fascinating plant not least for the way it propagates. That's done vegetatively by little offshoots from the succulent folio's edges (see inset). Our Plant is not particularly home-fast and it propagates in all tropical areas of its liking. Thus it's naturalised in many parts of the world.
Watch out, though. It's very poisonous.