Haworthia truteriorum I.Breuer & G. Marx

By Gerhard Marx - 23 July 2023

This unexpected and noteworthy occurrence was found by Sean Gildenhuys and myself during 2007 in the Heimersrivier area. Most surprizing of all was the fact that these retusoid plants grow tightly nestled in shale crevices on the south slope of a low hill. All other retuse-leaved Haworthias in the Little Karoo are always in quartzite or quartzitic conglomerates.

Presumably because it is a dull grey-green plant occurring in the Little Karoo, it has somehow been forced into synonymy with Haworthia bayeri. The attached photos illustrate clearly the more pointed leaves with numerous small teeth on the leaf-margins and numerous white flecks in-between it’s very thin facial lines which are all features not found in H. bayeri. It is also a smaller plant. Most importantly however, these plants flower during mid to late summer (starting February) which is more than five months after H. bayeri .The flowering time of H. truteriorum therefore matches that of the H. mirabilis and H. magnifica groups and it also shares the same thin peduncles and ‘soft’ slender perianth tubes. H. bayeri characteristically has shorter and thicker, more inelastic perianth tubes.