A couple more unlabeled gift succulents that I'm trying to id without success. Hard to do but perhaps someone will recognize them.

Possibly Graptosedum, the yellow flower reminds me of this one.

Graptosedum (XGraptosedum 'Francesco Baldi')



The second one looks like an Echeveria

http://garden.org/plants/brows...

The first one may possibly be Graptoveria (XGraptoveria 'Opalina')?

The second one "could" be Echeveria 'Blue Bedder' although the flowers look more red.

A open rosette-forming succulent of triangular blue-green leaves that have a pointed tip and rosy-pink edges. In late winter and early spring the pendant orange flowers are held above the foliage on slender stems.

In 2005 John Trager, Curator of the Desert Collection at the Huntington Botanic Garden notified us that this plant is actually Echeveria 'Blue Bedder'.

http://www.smgrowers.com/produ...

At the Huntington greenhouse

https://www.google.co.uk/searc...

I was thinking "Opalina" as well (the leaf is a good match) but they would have to be older plants, as Opalina normally grows a short stem (in good light anyway) and offsets sparingly.

Several of the plants in the database listing for Opalina are probably misidentified, including the one above. Here is another mismatch, probably a Graptopetalum:



The flower pictures are also straight Grapto, as are the leaves sprouting new rosettes. I will have to sit down and sort that section out soon. The key features which distinguish Opalina from a generic Graptopetalum are its wide, fat leaves; short stem; closed (bell-like) flowers; and reluctance to branch. Here is a correctly identified Opalina for comparison.



The parents of this hybrid are a Graptopetalum and an Echeveria. The fat, rounded leaves come from the former (G. amethystinum), made longer and wider because of the latter (E. colorata), which has a thick powdery dusting.

Look at x Pachyveria 'Calypso’

http://crassulaceae.net/xpachy...

http://www.jardinexotiquerosco...

Baja, the two photos are of my own plants, which were identified as Graptoveria (XGraptoveria 'Opalina') by a local gardener (south of France). They were already in the garden when we bought the house (15 years ago). If they are incorrectly labelled, please let me know so I can get them moved in the DB. Thanks!

I have spent some time wrestling with that question (it's not easy to identify these little Mexican plants) and would say the generic Graptopetalum listing is probably where all but the first two pictures should be placed, until someone can pin down a more specific ID. If you have seen the flowers and they are open like the ones on this page



then you can be certain the plant is not a Graptoveria (the Echeveria parent has closed, bell-like flowers and this feature transmits to intergeneric hybrid offspring).

Unfortunately I don't recall what the flowers are like, except that I thought them insignificant by comparison to the plants. Some of the other succulents are flowering at the moment, so I'll have a look tomorrow (it's now night time) to see if there are any in bloom - I don't think so, though; I seem to remember they flowered in the summer.
That said, I've looked through all 19 varieties of graptopetalum listed on Wikipedia and none seems to be a match...

Something odd has happened with the posts, when I last posted the previous post to mine wasn't showing.

I mentioned x Pachyveria 'Calypso’ because the flowers look so much like the one in question.

I think you may be right - the flowers do look very similar (and I'm also pretty sure that the flowers on my plants are not like that).

Opalina does appear correct. These two plants do have short stems and here is a closeup of the flower cluster form you, Baja, described. Thanks for the mini tutorial. Thank you all. The Echeveria is still a mystery but it has been for years I'll get a better picture of the plant/stem/rosettes tomorrow of the XGraptoveria 'Opalina'. Then if everyone agrees I'll post a good picture of all the attributes that helped in this ID.

Those flowers look very much like x Pachyveria 'Calypso’. They have 5 petals, the flowers you show Leslieray have 6 by the looks, does the number of petals vary?

http://crassulaceae.net/xpachy...

Did you miss my post about the Echeveria?

Baja_Costero said:I have spent some time wrestling with that question (it's not easy to identify these little Mexican plants) and would say the generic Graptopetalum listing is probably where all but the first two pictures should be placed, until someone can pin down a more specific ID. If you have seen the flowers and they are open like the ones on this page

• Graptosedum (XGraptosedum)
• Uploaded by purpleinopp

then you can be certain the plant is not a Graptoveria (the Echeveria parent has closed, bell-like flowers and this feature transmits to intergeneric hybrid offspring).

There are some xGraptoveria which look, to me, to have open flowers (not bell shaped)

http://crassulaceae.net/xGrapt...

There's photos of Opalina with flowers well down the page.

To my eyes the open part of those flowers is the lip of the bell, and yes it can flare open, but there's still a cup at the base. Some Echeverias have no flare whatsoever (just a straight tube) and others have a nice curly tip on the petals (eg. colorata). The only way to know the "bell-like" shape is to see the flower in profile, and in a few of those pictures you can see it pretty clearly. For example the first flower picture looks open from head on but clearly has a bell shape viewed from the side. Does that make sense? Maybe I unfairly judged the image above, lacking the right angle (point taken), but it looks pretty flat and Graptopetalum-ish to me from head on. The petals seem to fold open at the base, for their whole length, not partway along.

Regarding the flower picture from the original plant seeking an ID, the shape is about right but the color does not seem to be a match. "Opalina" flowers are yellow on the inside (check out the flower pictures in the link on the previous post) and yours do not seem to be. Maybe they start out pale and then color up as they progress? Some of my Echeverias seem to "warm up" as the first few buds open. Maybe keep an eye out to see if they change.

No doubt there are precise botanical terms for what I'm trying to explain. I apologize for my ignorance and tendency to use home-made words for stuff. My understanding of "open" and "closed" flowers comes from another (partly) Mexican genus, Dudleya (native to this region), where the shape of the flower is tremendously helpful in arriving at an ID.

So please allow me to diverge, in the interest of related plants. Within the Dudleyas (cousins of all the above Mexican plants), the cross equivalent to a Graptoveria would involve a hybrid between an open-flowered plant and a closed-flowered plant, and it results in exactly the intermediate phenotype you would expect (partly open, like the Graptoverias). The terms used for this shape in the standard Dudleya text (now outdated I guess) are "cup-shaped" or "campanulate". So I guess that's where my thinking on this subject comes from.

Hi again, There are some flowers on the French plants, which might help with identification:












Sorry I only have my mobile with me so the quality isn't ace... But mine have five petals, and Leslieray's seem to have more? Janet and Baja, If you need any other photos to help with the ID, let me know today if you can, as I fly back to England tomorrow. (Although I'll be back in a couple of weeks, and guess getting the pics moved in the DB isn't a matter of international urgency!)
Thank you for the information, which is always interesting!

I've looked at all the xPachyveria and xGraptoveria on the Crassulaceae site, all have five petals on the corolla.

The other thing I noticed is that, with an occasional exception, the sepals on xGraptoveria are quite short, some reach midway of the length of the corolla with an occasional one reaching maybe 3/4 length.

On most xPachyveria, the sepals reach the end of the corolla, or near to the end, with an occasional exception where the sepals reach midway.

As Leslieray's plant has 6 petals on the corolla, it would appear to be neither of these two genera unless there is an exception.

Cliftoncat, your plant does have 5 petals, and they look to open without a tubular back in profile. The sepals are quite distinctive being quite short, and very 'fleshy'.

These are a minefield, we may never find their true identity but I will attempt to have a good search to see what I can find given what I have noticed.

The flowers on your plant Cliftoncat, closely resemble those of x Sedeveria 'Yellow Humbert'. Some of the buds look very similar with fleshy sepals, and unless there's a mistake, the last photo shows a flower with 6 petals but the second to last photo shows both 5 and 6 petals in the cluster.

http://crassulaceae.net/xsedev...

We're not there yet.

Thanks, Janet. Your link http://crassulaceae.net/xGrapt...... is great and I've been browsing through it.
The closest I could find were xGraptosedum ‘Mediterranean Mystery’ and xGraptosedum ‘Ghosty’. What do you think? As you say, it's far from easy...
When I come back in a couple of weeks I'll try to get to two great local gardens, the Jardins des Serres de la Madone, (almost our neighbour here) and Hanbury Gardens in Ventimiglia, just over the Italian border, to see if anyone there has an idea.
And I'll bring my DSLR!

Sorry, crossed postings - I'll nip out and try to get a couple more photos (it's still a bit windy...)