My modest entry, a Euphorbia milii hybrid.

Christopher

This one needs to go on more of a diet! Three pairs of leaves was okay but four is too many! (The fourth pair is forming underneath the bud.)

Lapidaria margaretae

Found this one sitting around... While not the best 'macro' picture, I enjoy the rosette and the morning sunlight making the leaves sparkle.

Howard - Are all the little sparkling spots morning dew? Geometric shapes are working well here.

My Dischidia ruscifolia is blooming, and it's one of the cutest things ever. Rows of teeny tiny little white flowers ... maybe half the size of lily of the valley blooms.

Yes, Kevin. This is an early morning picture. As you may know, it is color corrected, because otherwise it would look orange and very unnatural.

Hey Acholla multispinosa! Get off my Aloinopsis schooneesii!!!

What is it doing there? I thought they are found mostly on apple trees...

Okay... you got me... I put it there. But it did fall on me when I opened the door to take some plants out! Not sure why it was hanging out on the roof, but that's where it was. Being a photo subject was the 'toll' for landing on me.

Howard - Going back just a little, I tried your method of hand pollination for my Haworthia today. Went pretty well. I think the trickiest part is removing the anther and filaments together, which makes pollinating the stigma easier.

NP, I was just joking...Great photo regardless that you 'staged it'! It could have wandered there on it's own :)

Kevin, with some it is easier than with others. I took two pairs of tweezers and grown down the tips to thin sharp points to make it easier. You do have to remove most of the filaments to get to the stigma. Also, you want to pollinate the oldest viable flower. The pollen is ripe the day the flower opens but the stigma isn't ready to accept the pollen for a day or two.

Rina - I totally missed your original joke, whoops. =P

Howard - Ah! That's a really good idea. I don't think I really have the tools for a clean grinding, but found a set of precision tweezers on Ebay for quite cheap. If they're not skinny enough, then I'll take the to file them.

This was an unexpected find tonight. After having just a single flower mid August while on vacation, I was sure this plant was done for another year. Not so!

Stomatium mustellinum

Do you guys isolate the plants you are hand-pollinating? To keep arthropods from interfering, I am guessing?

I've never even heard of Stomatium, Mayo. This is not good. I tend to obsess with certain plants. As you can probably tell by this picture, that genus is now on my hit list.

Haworthia silviae. It should really be Haworthia lengua or something.

Pagan

Pagan - All my plants are inside now so I didn't have to worry about interferences. Not sure what Howard does (and would be interesting to know). This was my first time hand-pollinating.

Stomatium is a sort of mini Carruanthus, but with a mat-forming habit. It's a neat plant.

Your Haworthia has a really crazy texture, nice shot.

Pagan, that is a beautiful photo. I just went out and looked at my H. silviae and not as nice as yours... good growing!

All my Haworthia are kept in the greenhouse so there is very little to no open pollination.

Kevin, you can go to a discount store like Target or similar that you have in Canada, and purchase a cheap set of tweezers. I use two sets so I can deal with both plants I am crossing. The top tweezer is original with more traditionally rounded tips and the bottom one has been filed. I used my grinding wheel. Since you will be here in a few weeks, I would be happy to do it for you; it takes all of a minute!

Lurker but found this thread and wanted to share. I'm a firefighter by profession and run a newborn photography business on the side, so disregard the name on the watermark- I was too lazy to make a new one. Love my "mother of millions".

Howard - Probably mine will take a month or two to arrive from China. If I see any good ones at Target in the USA I'll pick some up before I stop by. Photo helps to see how fine you ground them.

Angela - Keep em coming! I would say you're still in the newborn photo business with that Kalanchoe daigremontiana. =P

This one opened up for me yesterday. Only one head but hopefully the others bloom too:

Lithops hookeri

Nice shot, Angela. That plant is a little scary. Millions!

Thanks, Howard and Kevin. I originally thought those were plant hairs growing on the haworthia until I looked at them closely. They are veeeeery slow ones, these H. silviae. Further thanks for identifying my lithops--there are four in my pot and they never bloom at the same time. They are strangely attractive to bees---it isn't unusual to see several of them hovering over the bloom at any one time. Or maybe I have crazy bees.

Pagan

Cool composition, but your potting mix looks very xeric ;-)

Thanks for sharing, Angela!

Brad

Pagan, that texture is wild on the Haworthia silviae. It looks like you were super close for that photograph. Mayo, you keep posting great images of plants I can't seem to keep alive like Aloinopsis schooneesii and lithops. Howard, your dew is due some praise. It is literally a Cool shot!

Everyone, keep the great photos coming. This one is called:

f/16 and being there Notocactus ottonis v. aigua

Not the best shot but thought it was neat the way the spines of my baby Hylocereus undatus (Dragon fruit) suspended the water droplet.

Brad, the petals are translucent!

Yes, that was a pretty close haworthia shot--maybe a couple of inches. And back-lit. Because of this thread, I'm now having second thoughts about getting an actual macro lens which did not use to be in my wishlist.

Looks like Nick was very close to these spikes too.

I love macro photos, so I'm in too :D

Monadenium schubei, which was an offset from a friend, which died within days, which made me very sad.

Great shot coldeuphorb! Sad that your schubei died. Did you get a replacement? =(

I was really surprised when this bud came out. It emerged to the side, stuck between a pair of old and new leaves since early summer.

Lithops hallii

I am the 300th comment on this thread! sorry, couldn't resist : )

Neil! At least edit your post and add a photo. =P

Adromischus cristatus.

After this shot, I took down that stalk. Those sugar beads are trouble.

Do you ever get fruits/seeds, Kevin?

Pagan

Pagan - so far only one seed pod on my Haworthia cymbiformis var. variegata. I've tried with the others and still waiting to see if I get anything.

Have you ever tried pollination with Lithops or other Mesembs? I'm happily looking for tips and techniques! With Haworthia, I think I just need more practice.

Pretty cool that your Adromischus cristatus flowered! I made a special request to a local greenhouse and managed to get an Adromischus maculatus fairly recently (which was very exciting).

Are the sugar beads just trouble because of potential insect pests?

Anacampseros rufescens

More gorgeous pictures. This thread was such an amazing idea!

Arg. Your A. rufescens are purrty, Kevin. Mine are always ugly, I can't seem to figure these things out.

The sugar beads on adromischus sometimes drop onto the leaves and indoors in winter, you might end up hosting a fungal fiesta. This is especially problematic in A. marianneae which has shorter stalks and smaller flowers (mine ended up half-bald last winter). In A. cristatus, the flowers are big and heavy so the stalk kind of leans away from the rosette. But then it's going to drop that goop on the Euphorbia gorgonis beside it, then I'll probably get spots on that!

If someone had told me when I was 15 that I'd be refereeing this kind of crap someday, I would've laughed them out of the room.

Congrats on your new A. maculatus! They are super easy to propagate so do not throw away fallen leaves!

Most of my mesembs are too young to bloom. I tried bothering the blooming ones with a cat whisker; still seeing what happens next. I use the same trick with my Gasteria armstrongii and I got two fruits, and 8 seeds. I usually do not let my haworthias bloom.

Pagan

Hello garden peeps, I just needed to say thank you. Every night for two months now, I've checked this thread before I've fallen asleep. And almost every night, there has been artistic new succulent pics to send me off to bed. Thank you so much for generously sharing your photos and knowledge online. :) I've learned more about composing a photo versus a snapshot, quietly lurking here in the background. I really believe it helps so much that you love your subject matter as you do and I've been follow the discussion about pollinating in this thread also and might give it a systematic shot, versus my winging it style, if I can wrap my head around it. :D So I really just needed to come out of the shadows and say thank you so much. Gardeners are the most generous people.

Yes Rosy, come out and join the fun! No hiding in the shadows allowed... unless you're Neil and photographing your neighbor's plants :)

(!)

Rosy - Great post and I'm sure we all really appreciate it. I agree with Nicholas that hopefully you will contribute as well!

I was very excited to have this plant flower and it's been fun getting home every day and seeing how it progresses. Today's photo from me is a real macro!

Lapidaria margaretae

Nice, Kevin!!!

It's glorious!

This thread seems to have run out of steam so here are some pics to revitalize.....

Howard - did your H. pygmeae argenteo-maculosa send up its inflorescence yet? I'm a little bummed that STC ran out of H. 'Fire on the Mountain'.

This one popped open today and I really like the stripes on the petals:

Aloinopsis schooneesii

Hey Kevin... I just went out to look at my Haworthia pygmeae argenteo-maculosa and it doesn't have an inflorescence. In fact the only one that has a mature spike is one of my Haworthia comptoniana.

As for your Fire on The Mountain... my bad! Sorry for my mistake. The one you ordered was out of stock. They have another clone 81303 which may be the same as 81395. My mistake, because I should just substituted it and all would be fine. If you are up for another order in the spring, they may still have 81303. Again, sorry.

I would love to be able to grow mesems, but just looking at them and they curl up and die. Yours is a beauty!

Howard - If it's not an inflorescence, what is circular growth in the middle of your H. pygmeae? I have a few of my Haworthia that look like that, but those parts just don't grow out (at least for now).

It's okay about the Fire on the Mountain! I'm sure in the spring they'll have more or something equally as interesting.

Not going to lie, I bought this Aloinopsis just to see the flowers in person. From no buds and only leaves when I bought it, to several buds in development, I'm quite happy. =)

Ok Kevin. Went back and looked more closely and it is an inflorescence. It just hasn't grown much and no way to tell if it will.

Here are the two Haworthia 'Fire on the Mountain'. The first is STC 81303 and the second is STC 81392. According to the website, they may be the same plant but were acquired from different sources.

Adenium obesum seed

Lovely photos! Here's my latest purchase- it was simply labeled "echeveria sparkle".

Unknown Crassula ovata blossoms, 11/21/15.

This doesn't really qualify..probably should have used a darker background..but here are some m. plumosa flowers! Hopefully a whole crown comes out...but might not. Virtues of pot turning...

I like the pink stripes.

One of my newer plants has finally begun to establish its roots and plump up!

Haworthia 'Aboukyu'

That's a beautiful one.