Twit is announcing a new addition to his collection.

Was out weeding this morning and found, completely by accident, a crested Sopa. Don't know how I missed it before. It's a couple inches already, so its been there a while. Sopa is a pretty, colorful semp, so this crest should end up looking nice.

Here's a pic:

S. Sopa Crested.


So my Semp House of Horrors collection now includes:

Fame Monstrose
Oddity
Griggs Surprise
Boramir Crested
Deep Fire Crested (several)
Mauna Kea Crested
Sopa Crested

Note that two of these were found locally just this year, so everybody, check your collections for the unusual. They do crop up from time to time. It's too early to know if any of these crested forms will prove to be stable but we can always hope.

Congratulations! It looks very cool. Will be anxious to see how it develops.

Wow, that is such a wonderful thing to find. Now I want to go out and search through all the semps.

I have 'Weirdo' 'Pelora' Whirligig' + one I call 'Red Oddity' (somewhat smaller and neater than the well-known one, prolific, but not red all season)
JackB

twitcher said:I've been interested in the unusual sempervivum for some time now, but it's difficult to find specimens or hear about the unusual stuff. I'm starting this thread to have a place here for this topic. I'd really like to find a source of Whirl-i-gig and some of the crested forms. Can you help? Please?

I'm aware of the following ones:

Fame Monstrose
Oddity
Grigg's Surprise
Calcareum Monstrose
Red Lion Variegated
Weido
Whirl-i-gig

various crested forms:

Boromir Crested
Deep Fire Crested
Fuzzy Wuzzy Crested
Mauna Kea Crested
Legolas Crested
Pacific Dawn Crested


I'm posting a pic of my Red Lion Variegated to help get the interest going. Also a couple of crested forms I'm trying to stabilize and maintain. Both crested forms are new for me this year. The Mauna Kea is very unstable. One week it will look like its trying to morph into a couple of joined offsets and the next its clearly crested. I'll be adding more to this thread over the next few weeks.

One of the things I do when working with my plants is always being on the lookout for the unusual forms. Also, when at a nursery, I'm always looking for semps on sale that might have an unusual form or crest. Hopefully, I can convince the membership here to do the same and contact me if they find anything of interest. I'll update the above list from time to time with additions.

Red Lion Variegated, Deep Fire Crested, Mauna Kea Crested

Hi Jack.
Good to see you.
I love the photos I've seen of Pelor, such an unusual looking semp.

Hi Jack, Love to see some pictures of them.

Photos Jack, can you show us some photos?

I have two 'Purple Passion' semps that seem to be starting to crest.


This is a strange little 'Pacific Zoftic'. It's not flowering, just towering. Not reaching toward sun as everything else in that pot is normal.


Then this strange NOID. It got several stalks that appeared to be the beginning of flower stalks, but the flowers just fizzled out and produced chicks on top of the stalks. Not the best pictures to see what I mean though.

Chris, how exciting. Both of the Purple Passion definitely look to be crested.
I'm wondering if your little Pacific Zoftic will turn into a bloom?
The NOID is wonderful and interesting. I can see where the bloom fizzled out. Wonder what made it to that?

You have sure found many unusual semps in your collection this year. My favorite is the crested ones.

I'll be interested to see pictures on the life cycle of that crest. I want to see what it looks like blooming.

I'll keep ya posted!

Purple Passion looks like it might just be a stable crested one. A great find indeed.

What does does that mean twit? Stable crested?

Forms that are crested are often unstable in some way. For example, they may grow awhile, then die. They may never flower or produce offsets. They may revert back to the normal form. They may grow in such away as to push themselves away from the ground and thus not root well. They may never root. A crested semp that is stable will produce offsets and remain crested, is how I usually use and understand the term.