Haworthia

[Geoff]

This is a tough group of plants to classify clearly, and so far I have not read anything that makes it much clearer. Since I do not live in South Africa and get to see these plants in their native habitat, it is difficult to understand or see how they are accurately identified. Unlike many species of succulents, these are NOT identified by floral variations - or at least, flowers rarely have any usefulness when trying to classify these plants. Nearly all have identical flowers (some have pinkish flowers, but 99% are white and the same). Add to that growing conditions markedly affect the appearance of many of these plants (sun, shade, water, drought, heat, cold, wind, soil etc.). I have seen multiple examples of plants that are the same species (and even the same variety, subspecies etc.) look so unrelated it is hard for me to get my head around it. Even the room the plant has to grow in, or the colony size seems to dramatically affect the appearance of some species. Add to that even further that many species have varieties that look quite dissimilar, while others look extremely similar. And then add to that complication many species look a LOT alike. And then you can add to that seemingly insurmountable pile of obstacles to accurate identification based upon morphology, they hybridize easily... and hundreds of hybrids exist in cultivation, not to mention more and more are being created monthly.

Well, it turns out that if you do not know where a certain plant was collected, accurate identification is sometimes impossible. It is the only succulent I know of that where it came from, geographically, seems to be the most important clue as to what it is. And since we rarely have this information when looking at these plants in cultivation half way around the world, it is no surprise I am often confused as to what is what. So if you see photos that do not make sense, or your are a Haworthia expert, please comment upon this 'problem' and make corrections as you see fit.

There used to be a wonderful site, Haworthia.com, that had hundreds of photos and explanations and was a wealth of information. I often used it to identify plants, but even this web site made many issues murky for me, as so many unrelated plants looked similar, and so many photos of the same plant looked dissimilar ... then, without any fanfare/explanation, the site vanished (sometime around 2006?) and I have not seen/heard of it since. There are several good books on Haworthias, some with fantastic color plates and lots of information, but still, I don't get it.

[srboisvert]

You can still view at least parts of Haworthia.com on the The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine here. It's very slow but you can still read

[mickthecactus]

I'm with you Geoff. Even the experts fight each other.