Originally posted: November 28, 2011
We’re starting to get a sweet collection of cresting succulents these days. Check out this Graptoveria ‘Fred Ives’. Good color and adds a lot of punch amongst the green and gray succulents. Parents of this cultivar are Graptopetalum paraguayense and Echeveria gibbiflora. Crazy how some plants can cross breed between genera.
I think this was the first cresting succulent that we had in our garden. Back in the day, we picked up some cuttings from a buddy. Turned out that a couple of them started to crest. We’re not exactly sure how, why or when cresting happens, but wikipedia gives a good description of the weird growth. Seems that the growing point starts to go a little funky where the single growing point turns into a growing line or plane. Then the plant may form a crest or fan shape. It’s not limited to just succulents, but can occur on a variety of other plants. Yesterday, we noticed that one of our Euphorbia flowers is starting to crest. Strange.
Here’s a cresting Echeveria ‘Doris Taylor’ which we added to our collection a couple of months ago. Sometimes known as the Woolly Rose, parents are thought to be Echeveria setosa and Echeveria pulvinata. It has hairy leaves and normally grows in a rosette.
Aeonium ‘Sunburst’ getting weird.You can really see the flat stem here caused from the growing point happening over a line.
Update November 2019: We spotted this crazy big Euphorbia going cresty crazy up in Mendocino.
Far Out Flora 