I grew this plant from seed some nine years ago. I received five seeds, and two germinated and grew on. Unfortunately, one died off after three years because of root mealy bugs. The second one got a lot of extra attention to make sure it did not suffer the same fate.
I re-pot it every three years in a fifty-fifty JI No.3 compost and horticultural grit mix. I also add a small amount of blood, fish and bone to the mix by lightly covering the surface of the soil with it. I also add some slow-release fertiliser ‘balls’ to it.
Since it was four-years-old, it has flowered regularly every year. The only way to describe the smell is that it is like fresh dog poo! It only takes one flower to open to force you out of the greenhouse after a short time!
The flowers are dark brown in colour. They never open out fully but are similar to some carallumas in style. The flowers grow from in between the spines, which are very sharp indeed in their own right! They will produce flowers from the same places each year and, as they grow, will create new places along the stems to produce flowers. The flowers last up to two weeks from opening, though normally it is more like 5–7 days.
As the plant matures, its epidermis hardens and turns a grey/green colour. I water it once a fortnight from the middle of April to November, unless it gets very warm when it will get watered more often but only when the soil is dry.
The plant comes from South Africa and Namibia, where it can grow to 50cm high or more and becomes quite bushy in form.
Text and photos by David Richards
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