Cactus and Succulent Journal

On the cover

Unsatisfied with the slow trickle of succulent novelties, a few intrepid succulentists turn to hybridizing in search of new forms and flowers, and from their efforts have come some of the most vigorous, beautiful, and prized succulent collectibles known. Recent efforts at hybridizing members of the genus Fouquieria—a genus of spiny xerophytic trees popular with fat-plant collectors—have produced plants with a surprising degree of hybrid vigor. Our cover features a hybrid newly-named in this issue, Fouquieria ‘Pink Instead’, a play on the name of chief hybridizer, Joe Stead, and a reference to the plant’s pink flowers, which are a perfect intermediate between the white flowers of the seed parent, F. purpusii, and the carmine blooms of the pollen donor, F. macdougalii. And amazingly, this vigorous hybrid can grow a meter in it’s first year (imagine the opportunities this presents for bonsai training!), and seedlings may flower in their second growing season. Dan Houston captured our cover image and, in the accompanying article, takes us through the process of producing this and other crosses, a little-explored avenue of breeding with a great deal of promise in the years ahead.