Brand new Echeveria hybrid seedlings - New cultivars

Beginning in January we sowed several thousand Echeveria seeds that came from last summers crosses.

There are a few promising ones so far. Many of the results are from in-species breeding here are some of the crosses

The plant may be a bit too tender for making into a production cultivar. We will see how it looks a year from now.

The first one is out of Echeveria cv 'Black Prince' father of this is a super clone of Echeveria subridgida.

bob

This message was edited May 22, 2008 7:20 PM

This is a beautifully delicate Echeveria, Bob! But it certainly isn't what one would expect from its parents, is it? I look forward with bated breath to the pictures of all of your great crosses!

Here is a stranger,

This is an Aoenium hybrid? that showed up in one of the Echeveria sowings. It isn't like any Aoenium I own and we have over 50 taxon x. if it is a cross into Echeveria subridgida from Aeonium (seems not likely) it is very rare. I've not heard of such cross. (Although the plant isn't likely mothered by subridgida it came up in seeds taken from subridgida wind?) I only collected seed from one small Aeonium this year and it looks nothing like this plant) Note the pink borders and leaf form are much like subridgida').

Whatever it is - it isn't totally Echeveria, because Echeveria only has one species with margin serations (hairs) and we don't have that species or any derivative of it.

This has the most promise of any of the new hybrids. It is robust, seems to be hardy, drought tolerant and grows well with beautiful form.

Time will tell.

could be closely related to A. cv 'Kiwi'

bob:>)



This message was edited May 22, 2008 7:34 PM

This message was edited May 22, 2008 10:25 PM

It certainly does look like it at least has an Aeonium parent, Bob. You can send this one to me any day! What a beautiful little plant! When you make hybrids you sometimes get these oddball plants that don't make any sense. Sometimes even when it's a species an oddball can show up (think Mammillaria bocasana Fred). Just be glad it did, and try to figure out how to make a lot more of them as quickly as possible. Think tissue culture! :>)

Marilyn

This hybrid is out of Echeveria aff. runyonii, a plant discovered several years ago by Kelly Griffin.

This is a result of cross between E. cv 'Black Prince' pollen into runyonii aff. We have lots of this pairing going both ways. They seem to be very robust though slow as one would expect with 'Black Prince'

Another beauty! You seem to be getting quite a few with that exquisite pink tinge to the leaf margins. I love all of them!

Thanks for the compliments Marylyn,

It will be awhile before these will be propagated. They will have to grow. the largest is less than 2 inches across and less than 5 months old. A lot can happen during that time.

Another runyonii aff with pollen from 'Black Prince'

I believe some of these will be very dark maybe black with light margins.




This message was edited May 22, 2008 10:30 PM

This one isn't a good image. but it is out of Black Prince and it was subridgida pollen.

This looks to be an Echeveria subridgida super clone seedling. It is an ugly duckling seedling; these giants are spectacular at maturity.

It is just now beginning to develop a fine pruinose dusting. I expect within a couple of months it will look a lot more like its parents.

Not certain about this one out of runyonii affinity. It may be X cante

Leaf shape is unusually round for the Echeveria cultivars.


bob:>)

It'll be interesting to see how these change as they mature. I hope they don't lose that pinkish tinge on the leaf margins. Good job! Wasn't it fun sowing all those seeds that looked just like so much dust? :>)

Fascinating thread, Bob. My favorite would be the mysterious Aeonium(?) hybrid as well, how beautiful. I agree with Marilyn, the pink leaf borders are so pleasing!

The Echeveria subridgida super clone seedling (ugly duckling) reminds me of a family member...no way to keep him in large enough shoes as his growth continues to surprise all of us, but he's full of promise for the future. ;-)

When I'm poking through a new shipment of Echeverias at a nursery, it's so easy to take the choices for granted...without giving much thought to how they got there. Thanks for giving us a little window into how some of these beautiful plants come into the world!
Sheri

Thank you Sheri,

We hope something will come out of these. Certainly a lot of tedious time-consuming effort. Won't be nearly as hard next year. We have the equipment and learned so much about what not to do with Echeveria cultivar seeds!

This plant doesn't look like much. But it is very important to me if it is what I think it is.

I believe it' male parent was Echeveria cante, mother Subridgida rwb 1 (a group of super clones we named 'RED WHITE BLUE' no. 1 being the select clone of the group of 3). It is significant because the new subridgida was never used in the development of the Dick Wright hybrids. I doubt that it had been used for any of the cultivars because until this super clone strain was discovered 4 years ago in Mexico subridgida was weak and difficult to grow.

When Dick was developing the hybrids he used Echeveria cante and maintains to this day that it is the true subridgida. The pairings that resulted in most of the 'powedered lady' cultivars' have cante instead of the subrigida super clone as parent.

He is probably more nearly correct than the ego-driven bookworm taxonomists in calling cante 'subridgida'. Taxonomy is a poor language crutch that attempts to take a natural continuum of variation and stilt it with names that upon field examination is revealed to be flawed if not fraudulent and to the unaware - who has learned taxonomy from a book and cultivated example-specimens named from such learning after a month in the field will begin laughing at the insanity of the non-field-scientest taxonomist. Sorry about that, I get carried away on that subject. I'm trying to contain myself too.

Anyway a mating between this pair is nostalgic to me. Virtually a complete set of all the old subridgida parented cultivars will likely be affected by this improved superclone race discovered by Kelly Griffn.

This example may be showing early signs of variegation. it is very tiny less than an inch across.

Here is Subridgida RWB #1 parent to many of the subridgida derived cultivars we bred last year and started this year.

She hasn't got her summer color flush yet. The plant is budding now in the center of the crown.

Bob:>)

Here is Echeveria cante.

Echeveria cv 'Hot Lava'

This message was edited May 23, 2008 4:28 PM

An old favorite name with a new improved plant
Echeveria cv 'Curly Locks' III

Altman's cultivar.

I believe you're carrying on Dick Wright's legacy extremely well. I like the look of some of the new Altman hybrids, but I don't know anything about who's responsible for their propagation. I think that you'll surpass them by miles in no time. Have you done any work in making new carunculated hybrids?

Thanks Marilyn.
There is a lady who works in association with Altman's. I have several of her plants, probably 2nds or 'castoffs' that end up in the HD, Wally World and Target deliveries. Dick Wright knows her and says she is coming up well. She is gifted, has an eye for color beauty and is a 2nd generation breeder.

Dick is still hybridiziing. I will be getting some of his new ones by trade soon. He doesn't sell or give away castoffs anymore. It causes enormous confusion amongst collectors. they get used to the ones that get out there in that manner and take on the same name as the real McCoy production plant, and it ends up being a big hassle for Nurseries as well as show judges, etc.

I learn a lot from him. we have been good friends now for 35 years.

As to carunculated hybrids. Yes, I made many crosses into both Subridgida and runyonii aff. both ways to/from E. carrunculata. I wasted the seed from carrunulata (cooked the seedlings on a hot day). We have thousands of seedlings. C& J's took on over 20000 seeds. My share of those is 4 flats my choice. I expect we won't know for a couple of years whenever we begin to see carrunulation on some of the plants whether we got a result. We weren't clever enough to figure out which flowers were, which species on the smaller pairings. So when we lost the entire batc out of carrunculata mothered seed it was a setback.

As you must realize carrunculation is about as close to art as you can get with plant creativity. People either love them or hate them. There is no middle ground. I spoke to a brain surgeon several weeks ago. His son loved the carrunulated species. The dad said he was put-off by it. He had seen too many of the real thing at work.

Here is E. runyonii aff. the new plant ssp discovered by Kelly Griffin

I didn't know Dick Wright was still hybridizing. I had heard he was pretty devastated by the fire they had. When we were down your way several years ago one of the friends I was with talked to him about his plants and he said he wasn't doing any hybridizing at that time. We had hoped to find that he was still doing his wonderful work and that we might be able to acquire some of his stock. We were very sad. I'm glad he's doing much better and is back at work. Maybe I'll get a chance to meet the master some day.

Thank you for the info on the Altman hybridizer and Mr. Wright's recommendation of her. Between Mr. Wright, the Altman's person and you I'm now feeling very hopeful that we'll be seeing a lot of these exquisite Echeveria hybrids in the trade in the next few years. We certainly need them!

I wish you much success in your endeavors and especially with the carunculated hybrids. I know you must have felt horrible losing those E. 'Carunculata' X seedlings, but just think - maybe the next batch will be even better! When you're ready to release any of your new hybrids to retail sale please let me know.

Marilyn

Dick doesn't have a Nursery license anymore. He is 80+ years young. The devastating fire in 1984 ruined over 40 years of his own Echeveria hybridizing and all his Mother plants that he had inherited from his Dad and Dr. Harry Butterfield. His business was really beginning to flourish. He was the leading wholesaler of non-Cacti succulents in the world at that time.

He struggled through the 1970's building his business and had many unique and rare succulents in production. over 30,000 sq feet under plastic. He is a precision machinist by trade and he had innovated many hi tech propagation/irrigation techniques that have heretofore not been repeated.

On July 4th 1984 his Neighbor to the west and adjoining his property (US Marine Corp) accidentally created a fire that got out of control and swept through Wright's Nursery, Home, His magnificent tooling shop. Everything he owned was totally destroyed in a matter of minutes. Tools that he treasured were globs of molten metal. I visited a couple of months after the fire. He and Ruth were living on the property in a tiny camper.

His wholesale customers donated back to him many specimen that had come from his work.

He had no capital to get started again. Ruthie fought the USMC through 3 different Presidential administrations and they finally got a settlement from the Federal Government.

Dick hand-built a beautiful new (fire retardant) home 10 miles further into the wilderness up De Luz canyon. In addition he built what he calls the 'Chicken Coop' in which he has replaced his old tools and machines.

He began hybridizing again right after the fire. This time it was miniature Aloes and Echeverias. He has over 5000 taxon of miniature hybrid Aloes that are magnificent. He has sold none. A few years ago some people found out that he was dropping his castoffs into a canyon and went into the canyon and cherry-picked his castoffs. Some of the hybrids got out that were not released. He has released a few, that he has traded off. But to my knowledge he doesn't sell or trade them much.

Dick served as key member to the Volunteer Fire Department in DeLuz area. They fought many very hot fires and 5 years ago was awarded a heroe's medal for a stand they made to save over 2 dozen million dollar homes in one of San Diego counties worst wild fires. The groups fire truck was housed in a special place on Dicks Property.

Dick is very proud of his volunteer service. Last year they wouldn't let him on the fireline for the bad fire season all around us here, but he was busy providing infrastructure support and solved several technical problems at the staging areas where they were bringing the trucks back for service while the firefighters ate and rested before returning to the firelines.

I believe his new Echeveria plants may be being competed in the LA Basin shows. I haven't talked with him about it lately. He asked me once if I competed. I don't. He then said well if I wasn't going to compete, then a friend of his with whom he would be trading would begin competing.

He has never been publicly recognized for his service and contributions to the succulent world.

An humble man.. a great man.!

Bob:>)

This makes my stomach hurt. A life's work completely ruined, and all those tools gone too. How awful! "Devastating" doesn't even begin to describe such destruction. I don't know if I could have gone on if it had been me.

What intestinal fortitude Ruthie had to even take on the government let alone do so through three administrations. The timing means that they didn't get their $$$ until 2000. I don't think I could have done it. Good for her!

It seems such a waste to have all those Aloes and Echeverias not in production or being publicly displayed. He seems to be somewhat of a private person. I wish there was a way to help him understand that there are many people who would be completely ecstatic to have some of his plants, old or new. But then again, having people cherry-pick his castoffs out of a canyon doesn't do anything to bolster his confidence in us, does it? Aaarrggghhhh!! I wonder in whom he decided to place his confidence re putting some of his plants on display.

Many of us know WHO Dick Wright is, but don't know him personally. It would be absolutely wonderful if someone would write a huge article about him, or maybe even do a whole issue about him, in the CSSA Journal. I know the current editor, and he might be willing to do so. Also, Steve Hammer is the assistant editor and I'll bet he'd agree with me. Fred Dortort, a friend of mine, often contributes articles to the Journal and I'll bet he'd be champing at the bit to have the opportunity to do this. Mr. Wright deserves all of the public recognition he can get for his contributions to the succulent world.

I can see that Mr. Wright is a proactive person. I'm glad he was acknowledged for his work during the San Diego fires, both the past ones and the most recent one. From what you've said he also seems to be quite innovative. He SHOULD be proud of his volunteer fire service as well as what he's done in the succulent world. He's definitely the kind of person I'd love to meet and to be someone I'd definitely like to call my friend. I can see how proud you are to call him that.

Thank you so much for giving me the story of what's happened to him over the last 24 years. It's much appreciated!

Have all of these children changed much yet? I'd like to see if they have. Echeverias is one of my top interests at present. Guess they were last summer also. You have some beauties there. Jam

Wow-- what great stuff! I'm glad you brought this back up to the top, Jamlover!

So where can you buy Echeveria hybrids labeled in California?

Thanks for sharing the story about Dick Wright, Bob. I'd heard of him and his work, but had no idea he was a local. What a sad thing to lose everything like that -- years of hard work - important work - irreplaceable. How interesting that he would become so active in fire fighting years later and better yet - receive a hero's award. It would be wonderful to meet him. An article about him is a great idea. I'm sure it would be read with wide interest. Here's to hoping that happens!

Wow, we need Bob to give us some updates since this thread is 2 years old!

Please! More Echerveria stories, history information! Can you buy some Altman hybrids? Bob I love your E-bay plants! They are nice! I shouldn't post it! It might increase my competition for your offerings!

PLEASE more stories and information!

Doubt it will happen since this thread is 5 years old now and it wasn't updated when requested back in 2010.

I thought it was worth a shot. Call it novice ignorance. :)

But it was worth bumping up the thread again for others that haven't seen it yet!!

Yes, I find this fascinating information! Thank you.

Yes... Bob, PLEASE give us an ECHEVERIA update!

Ravens444!!! Are those yours? They are really amazing. I am giving my first shot at propagating my ONLY Echeveria. I'm still in the admiring, learning stage...

Those photos were a nice start to my day. Thank you.

Thank you! Does anyone know the difference between Bittersweet and Arlie Wright? Some of my plants are missing tags. I know I had both at one time. Here are earlier pics of plants though one pic is in May and the other February. Only Bittersweet in in my Echeveria book and frankly I don't think my plants look like that? Arlie is the first image and Bittersweet is the second.

I don't know know the difference. Really lovely though.

Have really fallen in love with Dick's hybrids over the last few months. Have collected a couple here and there when that show up on the interwebs. Such a shame to hear the whole story about the fire. Hope his creations will inspire others to pick up from where he left off.