Thanks, Noki and Ro! Spent the weekend with my head wrapped in Bayer's Haworthia Revisited--ouch! He doesn't acknowledge this plant as a valid species or cultivar. Tropicos lists it as a species with three varieties. http://www.tropicos.org/Name/18402699?tab=subordinatetaxa Kew lists it as a species and says it's a synonym of H. viscosa. http://www.theplantlist.org/tpl/record/kew-277476 So I believe I'm a gonna label it Haworthia tortuosa (Haw.) Haw. World peace may be easier to achieve than naming Haws :0 Thanks everyone for your input. rgds seedmoney Here is a link that might be useful: Haworthia tortuosa

I considered fasciata, but that one has more lines than dots. Also, fasciata grows flat, while the one shown seems to have a central plant and some offsets around the base. Both are in our collection, but I realize that plants vary greatly. For what it's worth, I think that a plant separated from the tag becomes something other than a species. (The reason for Haworthia sp. or Haworthia aff. fasciata). Some plants are distinct enough to not be mistaken for another, but most plants exist as a continuum (love that word, other than vacuum, it is the only uu word I know). This means that the line between species is a human construct, and once the marker is moved, the hole it occupied is filled in. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_affinis

That's right. Perhaps.... We won't ever know unfortunately or at least not until such as a time comes along when the tree has more distinctive traits. Let your friend that it's a Picea engelmannii and that the tree needs to be stake lightly for just a year and that the farthest branch toward the center of the photo should be clipped off at its location growing from the (main) trunk. Apical or upright growth on that tree will actually become a certainty....... Dax

The genus of Haworthia, Aloes, and Gasteria are so very much similar that they freely interbreed with each other causing much confusion in the field. My info said it's a hybrid which it does look like. My info can't be backed up from Google searches but didn't do the proper research yet. The flowers from Aloes and Haworthia are very much different but not so with the hybrids which mostly favor the Aloes.