In November, my Haemanthus albiflos sent up a very sturdy flower stalk with a simple white flower at the end. I think this is the most elegant plant in my collection. I like its economy of leaves.
About a week ago this blog reached 1,000 followers! Thank you all for sharing in my love of succulents.
When I first started getting interested in succulents, I began going to botanical gardens to get inspiration and to start learning the names of plants that I was drawn to. This plant at the Brooklyn Botanical Garden stuck out:
From the tag I learned it is a Haemanthus albiflos, albiflos because the flowers (-flos) are white (albi- like albino). It isn’t a succulent in the traditional puffy leaved or cactus sense, but is actually a bulb from South Africa. I thought it was such a cool looking plant with multiple leaves growing out of the same center and the new growth being a different color from the outer leaves. Months later I won a lovely pair of bulbs in an auction at the Connecticut Cactus & Succulent Sale. I got them for cheap, but was willing to bid pretty high to get one for my collection, luckily it didn’t come to that. Below are two photos of it:
The leaves on both have since died back and new leaves have sprouted. I was worried about it during my recent move because it took me a couple of weeks to get a grow light set up in the new somewhat cave-like apartment, but the new growth is doing very well:
