Thanks for sharing Ben, I have never come across a crested or montrose Jade before, let alone a Jade Gollum species. Very interesting cultivar! Makes it all the more precious!!

OM goodness, I think I need a piece of this, ben. Can you hook a brother up somehow, even if it means spending MY money? And thanks for the pictures - they're all wants, but the first is the best, IMO - at first, I thought it was some sort of monstrose Anacampseros rufescens. This new plant is just what I need to honour the winter solstice coming soon. Monstrose 'Gollum' might be gilding the lily, but so what? (Miles Davis album ref for some of you)

It is an interesting one, indeed. Love to see how it develops. That would be a nice acquisition.

Christopher

Jeff, here in Germany it is already freezing at night so i could send you a cutting at the earliest in next spring. However, just write me a pm to my flickr account (bens2bens) and I will forward you the email of the italian seller ... maybe you are lucky and he has some more cuttings of this micro gollum. He is specialized in crested succulents. Once i also got a crested arborescens from him (same as "Break Dancer") ...

BTW ... I searched this forum for "crested jade" and found an interesting thread with two other forms of probably crested gollums. Would be nice to know if they survived and how they look today.

click here

Ben

Ben

it's very interesting. I seem the crests are growing faster than usual. My 'Break Dancer' is growing much faster than other arborescens in my conditions, but it has not wax coating

Ben, thank you, that's very kind. I'll let you know in the spring if I'm not successful with the Italian fellow. I'll write you soon to get his email addy.

Really unique, Ben, I like the helix type pattern the leaves seem to be growing in - I guess most crested plants do something similar, I have little experience with them. Thanks for sharing your new discoveries with us, otherwise most would never know they existed.

Daniel

Congratulations, Ben. Yes, it is astonishing how many different jades there are - it's as though they are showing off just for us.

Ben-

I always enjoy your posts and I am amazed you are able to find some of these selections/cultivars. Good luck with the new acquisition and all the others too!

HI Ben

nice looking plant.

curious to know if you plan on removing all the larger leaves to keep it more compact like some do to the Legolas albino leaves or let it grow as natural as possible.

Richard

Pretty cool, Ben! A very unique new discovery.

Josh

Ben, your new crested jade is indeed lovely, and it has led me all over the www reading up about cristates. Is the stem of a crested plant always flattened? I can't see with your Micro Gollum whether it is or not, but I assume so. Can you have a crested plant without this flattened stem? My question arises because a month ago I thought my one green Hobbit was going to flower, but now on closer inspection I realise it has several heads of new leaves which are quite small - I have been looking up images of other people's Hobbits and cannot see plants just like mine, but on close inspection of the stems I cannot see any noticeable flattening. I will get back with a photo tomorrow, although maybe someone will now chime in and say this is normal for many Hobbits.

Margaret, I am not Ben, but would like to give my opinion, whatever it is is worth. I think in the quest for something different, some people are looking for any slight difference to call their Jade a new cultivar, when it is not. Not every Hobbit grows the same. You see Hobbits with small leaves, whereas mine are very long leaves, and I think in every Jade there is some variation in growth, which does not necessarily make it a new cultivar, or something out of the ordinary. Just my tuppence.

Christopher

Ben

I'm not sure, but I seem that it's need more blue light for crests. Can you find led-fixture with blue and red leds in ratio 1:1? I know such lighting fits for Gollum and crest formation. But it doesn't fit for Coral.

Margaret

very interesting Lapshin's article http://www.lapshin.org/science/crest-e.htm

Christopher

I agree with you. Leaf size depends on growth conditions often.

Oksana.

Kris, thanks for the input, I understand what you are saying. I will post a photo as soon as possible so you will understand why I asked. And you may well be right, it may be totally normal for Hobbit.

Oksana, thank you very much for the link, I'll check it out.

In Oksana link Photo 5. Crassula portulacea f. monstrosa appears to be a jade referred to as a hobbit is that the correct name for this plant.

Richard

Now here is my Hobbit mentioned above, I hope it's all right to post here on your thread, Ben.

Hi,

Marguerite, your posts are always welcome :) As far as i can see from your picture your plant is just branching and not cresting.

Christopher, there exist indeed a small and a big variant of the so called "Hobbit". The big variant is also called "Horn Tree" and looks pritty much like a "Red Horn Tree" in its green winter state. So your Hobbit is most probably a Horn Tree ... however, also the small Hobbit can get quite big leaves when grown in shade and with fertilizer.

Richard, for me the plant in pic 5 from Oksanas link looks like a Gollum. Both Gollum and Hobbit sometimes are referred to as monstrose ... just google for "gollum monstrose". I'm not sure if crested and monstrose can be used interchangeable. Maybe crested growth can be seen as one form of monstrose growth. That would mean that the Micro Gollum has two different forms of monstrosity ...

Oksana, my fluorescent tubes also have red and blue in a good ratio :) ... and i doupt that is is the light color that makes the crest.

All the best,

Ben

Thanks, Ben, for looking at the photos and for being such a courteous host.

I agree with Ben, Marguerite. That is very nice, compact new growth. It will open up over time and make for some excellent branches.

Ben, indeed, regarding the size of 'Hobbit' leaves, I have observed this first hand. When I purchase my original 'Hobbit,' the leaves were at least 3-inches long, or longer. After a year or two in my care, the leaves had compacted and become so much more colorful. My 'Gollum' have done the same - long green leaves when purchased, tight compact and colorful a few years after. That said, I do agree that smaller and larger phenotypes exist for these plants.

The 'Red Horn Tree' seems to be a stable variant with large leaves, as I have not noticed any reduction in leaf-size from the time that I first received the cutting.

Josh

Josh, there is also a stable form with larger leaves that stay large even when grown in full sun ... so two genotypes! Here a pic i got from Glen some time ago. It shows two plants of same age: Giant Hobbit (Horn Tree) on the left and the ordinary Hobbit on the right (or on top).

All the best,

Ben

Thank you, Josh. Ben, I see now the smaller Hobbit in your photo is like mine in growth.

What are approximate sizes (length) of the big / small hobbit leafs when grown in good conditions, if anyone knows?

The giant hobbit above seems to have much longer internodes as well as larger leafs, if grown in same conditions as little hobbit in picture with it.

I find it interesting that in many genus/species smaller versions are called dwarfs, but with our crassula/jade the larger one's are "giant" or "tree" :) Perhaps due to which was found/cultivated first.

Daniel

Ben,

I signed into Flickr and searched for you - no dice. I went into the search box and typed 'bens2bens' and no luck. Could you email me at jharrisv2e1l3at geemaildotcom? Thanks much.

Josh, I have to agree with Ben. My Hobbit always had large leaves, akin to the Red Horn Tree cuttings I have. My Hobbit was always in my south facing window, and even outside for a time last summer, and there was no change in leaf size. Here is a photo of it right now.

Christopher

Ben,

I always thought monstrose referred to deformations in leafs, and crested referred to deformations in meristems (growing tip). So I think Micro Gollum is both crested and monstrose. Gollum, Hobbit, various Fingers, and Denethor are all monstrose but not crested. But I could be wrong on terminology. Break Dancer looks crested but not monstrose.

Daniel

Daniel, yes, you are, as both are considered monstrose growth, but crested plants have a specific cristate pattern in their monstrose growth.

This one (Hobbit?) was purchased in April 2015, 2 plants in pot, re-potted individually. One below grows much more than second one, both have large leaves:

They were potted in same mix, same size pots and spent summer & fall outside, in sunny location.

Rina

Thanks for correction, Mr. McHarris. I will study more.

Daniel

ps

you should try typing "flickr bens2bens" into google. google knows all. i should take my own advice...

Daniel, I thought that if I were logged into same that it would give me the result I was looking for. But thanks to you, the Google result resulted in just what I wanted.

Hi!

About Lapshin's article. He wrote it 13 years ago. At that time he was wrong regarding Gollum. And I don't know whether he had Gollum or described its appearance on pic. But he depicts rightly the crest definitions.

The main difference between the Hobbit and Red Horn Tree is that the last can synthesize pink flavonoids as 'Hummel's Sunset'.
For comparison

Oksana.

Christopher, I, too, agree with Ben (not sure if you were stating something contrary?). I specifically mentioned the plants that change in habit, as well as the phenotypes that exist with stable small and large leaves.

Josh

In my experience a leaf size of all Jades depends on soil quality. All Jades with large leaves begin to sprout more compact small ones in my conditions. In inorganic sandy loam and without fertilizer.

Oksana

Almost all my jades are in totally inorganic mix - only grit, perlite and turface, and I don't fertilize them. Some have huge leaves - see the photo of Hobbit in my post (few posts up). Regular jades (Crassula ovata) have many large leaves, anywhere between 2.5 - 3" (approx. 6-8cm). They overwinter indoors, under some supplementary lighting, and spend late spring-summer-fall outdoors, in full sun. I don't have 'fancy' jades, just many common C. ovata, 3 Hobbits (as in the photo), Gollum (or Finger jade?), couple of Wavy jades, C.o. variegata Tricolor. I did receive few cuttings this year of others, but they are very small yet.

On one of the jades (C. ovata), I noticed that leaves growing first after extensive pruning were quite small (and dark in color - it was in full sun), and leaves growing after that are much bigger - see photo below (early leaves are small & dark red):

Rina

Rina

my jades may grow large leaves at first while there is old stock of nutrition. Then, after 4-8 months they begin to sprout small leaves without any defoliation. Only after that I can remove old big leaves if I don't like them. And I don't like them almost always.

Oksana

I have not gotten to read through all of these posts yet but Josh mentioned 'Red Horn Tree' growing similar leaf sizes, unlike the 'Hobbit' Margaret posted. I'll have to try to get a picture of the 'Red Horn Tree' cutting Margaret so kindly sent to me. It originally had the typical very large long leaves but my new growth has come in very compact. I think a lot of it just has to do with culture.

Ben, that 'Gollum' is absolutely wonderful.

-Erica

Erica, I'm so glad your cutting thrived, it would be interesting to see.

"I find it interesting that in many genus/species smaller versions are called dwarfs, but with our crassula/jade the larger one's are "giant" or "tree" :) Perhaps due to which was found/cultivated first."

Daniel, I never thought about that before, a very good point.

Don't want to take away from Ben's post about the micro 'Gollum' but here is the 'Red Horn Tree'.

-Erica

Thank you, Erica, I didn't realise those leaves were so very long; it looks like it's doing well, though, good for you. You know how to take care of your plants.