Haworthia jadea Hayashi

This is one of a few fringe elements of the Haworthia bayeri complex. There are as many differences between H. jadea and H. bayeri as there are similarities. The prospect of including it as a variety of H. bayeri is therefore reasonably acceptable but to simply refer to it as H. bayeri can only be acceptable to people with a rather insincere interest in these plants.

During the early 1990’s Bruce Bayer was still considering the element now known as Haworthia bayeri to be synonymous with his concept of Haworthia emelyae H. picta). During this time Jan Vlok encountered a new large and glossy form of Haworthia picta in the Paardeberg hills to the east of the Kammanassie dam. This new discovery was later named Haworthia picta var. janvlokii by Ingo Breuer.

Soon afterwards, in an effort to locate Haworthia picta var. janvlokii in the wild, I climbed the Paardeberg from the eastern side but was unsuccessful in finding it but instead I encountered what looked like a miniature form of Haworthia bayeri. Shortly afterwards I obtained more precise information regarding the whereabouts of Haworthia picta var janvlokii and realized then that it grows a mere three kilometres or little more away from my newly discovered miniature ‘Haworthia bayeri’.

When these facts were reported to Bruce Bayer, he finally gave in and concluded that there must be two species involved within his H. emelyae perspective. He then gave his blessing to Steven Hammer and Kobus Venter to publish the rough blue-grey plants as a separate species. They then named it Haworthia bayeri.

However, ironically enough the small miniature ‘H. bayeri’ growing so close to H. picta on the Paardeberg proved eventually that it is no ordinary H. bayeri after all. It flowers three months later than normal H bayeri and remains small and particularly in cultivation it develops lighter jade-green colour in contrast to the dark bluish grey-green of H. bayeri. The flowers of this small jade coloured element are also softer and have narrower more slender floret tubes than those of H. bayeri.  Again these differences were enough to inspire Dr Hayashi to publish it as a separate species named Haworthia jadea.