Hi I have the plant you are looking for. Hillii is not yellow or gold. It is nearly white with a slight yellow, the flowers are small and pinched but there are very many of them making a lush foxtail. The plant I have is a young one, 4 years old with 7 to 8 growths, probably 3 to 4 years from blooming. Don Brown is not an exceptionally good speciosum. The flower size and shape is not note worthy. It got so much attention because the awarded plant was so big. 2,000 lbs, needed a fork lift to put it in place and it got a very high Culture award for the outstanding growth that was on display not because of the quality of the plant. A smaller plant of similar nature would have been ignored by the judges. If you want rich deep gold or yellow on a large, open flower these things are around but expensive and hard to find. At our own orchid show a vendor had 2 plants like that, in bloom, one spike each but great quality. He wanted $300 for each of them and I was dicking with him hoping to get a better price near the end of the show. Suddenly both the plants were gone. He claims he got $500 for each of them. If you still want that Don Brown get back to me and I'll look up those Amadillos or whatever it is you have. Nick

Hi, yes I received it. Thanks. I'll take a look again if this is same as this one in the pic. I just received two large cuttings with bud from a nice gardener here. Mine, bloomed once. It's like yours but the size was very very small. Malnutrition perhaps. :( Will send you an e-mail. Thanks again.

If you haven't grown Staps before, I'd suggest you get a cheap one or 2 to start. They can be tricky to learn, can be a bit temperamental & are prone to rot. I've had 1/2 pots of them rot at a time, have heard/read it's rather their habit to rot the old growth as they spread the new. Just so you know, & before you spend big bucks.

Hi Mikedahms! Thank you for providing the link to the Asclepius site, although I didn't find the culture info. (Perhaps I didn't look closely enough)? I rooted two cuttings of Stapelia gigantea recently after letting them heal for several days. They are in a standard potting medium (Fafard 3B) 3 parts to one part extra perlite. They rooted well after two weeks and are in partial morning sunlight for about 4 hours. They are also in clay pots for a quicker dry-down. I have been all over the internet trying to find the specific culture of S. gigantea, but only one site offered this: *part sun to light shade *well-drained potting media *keep above 50 degrees F (10 C) and avoid frost *withhold water in the winter months I am speculating that fertilisation should be with low nitrogen, say a 20-20-20 (N-P2O5-K2O) at a rate of 1/4 tsp/gallon (about 4 litres)once a week during the growing season only. Fertiliser withheld in autumn and winter months, as well as keeping the potting medium dry during the darker months, but keeping the plant in as much light as possible. What do you think? I would not consider potting Stapelia in just sand because it has no moisture-holding capacity, as well as having no CEC. CEC or cation exchange capacity is the ability for a medium to hold fertiliser nutrients, but not tightly enough to not release them to the roots. Perlite, although used for aeration and drainage, does have a bit more moisture holding capacity than sand, but no CEC. What do you think? (I would not consider using organic fertilisers such as bone meal or blood meal, by the way - because I am vegan). Also, I found some wonderful sites for pictures at: http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf.showimage/2205 and http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantqrs.stapelia.htm For more pics of flowers in various genera and species of Asclepiadaceae, see: http://anti-matter-3d.com/Stapelaids/ and click "Stapeliad Gallery". Thank you, John_Z