Ewwmayo, thank you. it's not oophylla. It's a medio-variegated cotyledon orbiculata but I don't know which one. The variegation is not very visible on this photo. Off topic comments are welcome ;)

Hi Laurent. I haven't tried growing Legolas or gollum variegata from leaf. But i have tried other variegated jades with the same effect:either albino or green new growing. But i have some experiences with dying of gollum variegata. I lost already one rooted cutting from Ben and two others from italian collector-the same source as Margaret. So agree that is more fragile than legolas, which is growing without any problems. Today i have another cutting from Glen which is doing well till now.

Roger Hyan

Martin, good luck with your variegated gollum !

Laurent

what temperatures do you have in hot summer?

As the pots containing my succulents are exposed full sun, against the building facade, the temperatures can reach between +35 and +40 °c during the hottest summers. +25°c at night.

For Ewwmayo : 2016/2017 has not been very rainy, that's why the leaves are still very powdery and the variegation not very visible. It's a very rare cultivar. I got a 2 cm cutting many years ago. It took years to get established. The leaves don't have their mature shape yet, they will look more like ssp undulta. My plant is only 10 cm tall. It might look very good in 2 or 3 years. I have 2 other cultivars of variegated cotyledons orbiculata. I will post a topic ;)

Laurent

and have you never thought to protect these plants from such temperatures? Gollum var. is chimeric at first, and then it's succulent.

Oksana,

I have no other place to stock them. My full sun window sills and nowhere else. No shade. They die if I bring them indoors in summer. I make mini-shelters for the most fragile ones but the temperatures inside the pots can be very high.

Small variegated Gollums die outside during hot summers but not small Legolas. And I don't know why both cultivars can survive indoors all year round but not cultivars like tricolor or solana (they look ugly in my appartment). I don't know why.

The plant doesn't tolerate extreme conditions if they contain much chimeric cells. Regardless of the cultivar.

"Small variegated Gollums die but not small Legolas."

I would recommend to keep them indoor with protection from the hot. Under the air conditioner and fixture for example.

Good thread! I have grown a couple leaves of each and gotten only green plants. Worth trying though. The new plantlet has to grow and emerge from the area where green and white tissue mix. If you have a leaf that is half green/ half white down the middle it will have less chance of producing a variegated plantlet then a leaf that is a good mix of green and white stripes. However, your chance is still much smaller than getting all green or albino plantlets. I really like these two cultivars, I have had 'Legolas' only a little over two years from a small cutting and the other I got last summer as a cutting. Knock on wood both are doing well and I have further made some cuttings of 'Legolas'. From the looks of your photos you are doing everything very well!! Neat that you got at least one variegate from a leaf!

Oksana,

In the past I had tried to keep tricolor and Solana indoors but they looked awful. I thought it would be the same with gollum & legolas. That's why I didn't test keeping them indoors. When I finally resigned myself to try Legolas inside, it looked good. Now I'm going to keep them indoors and outdoors.

Woodnative,

Would you share photos ?

Solana has more normal cells than Tricolor. So it tolerates extreme conditions than Tricolor. In any case, Tricolor and Gollum var. should be protected from high temperatures. And it would be better if they are grown up in more fertile and friable soil.

Oksana

I have Tricolor (I hope that is the plant mentioned - if you only mean variegated Gollums, sorry for posting this), and find it quite easy over all. I got originally 1 plant, pruned 2x and have at least 20 smaller plants right now (all from original plant) growing. In summer, they are outside on shelves facing east, and get morning sun until about 11:30am or so. In winter, they are indoors under ordinary CFL bulbs. Here are some of them now:

"they are indoors under ordinary CFL bulbs"

Rina

the light of these lamps are the best for Tricolors. I think for all variegatas. But 'Gollum' needs in more blue light, and 'Coral' needs in more red. So may be 'Legolas' needs in more red light and 'Gollum' var. needs in more blue.

"much more white/creamy color"

Such leaves grow more under direct sun light.

Oksana

Thanks Laurent for Legolas' age details... if all goes well I will grow some back-ups too. Wow! Beautiful arrangement & pristine photo with the gorgeous variegated Crassula perfoliata and cotyledon orbiculata. Would love the see the bright pink jellybean(?) sedum, in the far back right if you have a chance.
Rina, I enjoyed seeing your collection of tricolors, so pretty! You take great care of them to get them looking that fantastic. Maybe I should melt some snow...

-Nancy

Oksana

Thank you...I would like to find some other variegated jades or other succulents.

Nancy

Thank you, the rain water helps since there is very hard water where I live. And I did melt some snow this winter, lol...

Nancy,

Sorry for my late reply.

A few days back, I removed a small, nearly albino branch from my 'Legolas.' Very little chance that the cutting will root, but why toss it, right? ;-)

Josh

Josh, would you share photos of your variegated jades ?

Josh,

I think there is no chance :( if it is completely albino. If it has some green fragments, it can grow in soft conditions: the nutritive soil, sufficient but not strong light, not high temperatures to restore the normal cells.

Oksana

Laurent, thank you for the photo! Such a lovely color on those bountiful clusters, really beautiful. A few years ago when I started to buy colorful succulents, that was one, but it didn't make it. I do see them at the garden centers in the Spring, so I may get one again. They really are a fun plant, and seeing yours makes me miss having one.

A couple of Tricolor leaves below. I know the albino baby is just temporary, but still enjoyable to see.

I'm starting to believe it's not plain green.

-Nancy

Nancy, on your first photo, one of the two Tricolor leaves is producing a well variegated plant. Is it something that rarely happens (like with my variegated Gollum from leaf) ? I have never tried to propagate tricolor from leaf.

Your Legolas looks albino.

Nancy,

it's not plain green

it's chlorina. Later it will become albino.

Oksana

Nancy, Laurent

I had few Tricolor leaves to grow variegated or very, very light plantlets just as Nancy shows. As they got bigger, they reverted to all green. Hope that doesn't happen to Nancy - pls. post a follow up.

Next time, if I see one, I'll try what Oksana suggests: no strong light and no high temps.

Hi, Laurent, I'm back :-)

Oksana, I don't really have any hope of rooting, either. The all-white leaves have already fallen off the small cutting.

Josh

Nice plant Josh !!!!

Do you still have your white variegated ovata ?

I do, Laurent. It is a slow grower, but doing well I think.
I will take a picture of that one, too.

Josh

White variegated ovata, Laurent :-)

Laurent & Oksana - Thank you for the Legolas albino leaf diagnosis. Ohh well, better to know sooner than later that it isn't variegated... such a tease!

For tricolor leaves, I have seen a few sprout variegated and many solid green. I didn't pay much attention to them and assume they dried up.

Thank you very much Josh. It seems fragile but it's very nice.

I have repoted the little plants separately.

They look wonderful, Laurent!

Yes, the white ovata is fragile....the leaves burn so easily!

Josh

Hey! Does anyone know where to get Legolas Horn Tree in Germany? My mom is crazy about it! Internet shops, markets, anywhere else? Will be very thankful for information :)

Hi Ieva. Legolas and Gollum Variegata are very rare and slow growing species. You don't buy it in normal way. If you are lucky, you can win the auction on ebay (from time to time it appears there) or if you have some another rare specie, what the collector would exchange with you is also possibility. The prices are quite high due to the fact, that these species are very very rare. The Red Horn Tree is common and you can buy it for normal price.

Martin

Well I have lost all of mine. Yes, they are very very fussy to grow and maybe that is why they are so hard to find or so expensive..

Thankfully I do have a couple of friends here that have cuttings of mine doing well and they promised to share theirs with me if I was to loose mine..Well here I am, the one that provided a few cuttings of my now dead mother plant gollumless..((

They don't like to dry out completely or die. They don't like to be watered after being dried out too long or die. They don't like to be near a cold window at night although by day they do. They don't like water on the leaves either...

They are far too fussy for me. The only one I ever grew was the variegated Gollum I got on eBay, that lasted a very short time. The only way I will ever grow one again is if it appears as a spontaneous sport one one of my green plants. I just couldn't be bothered. There's no temptation otherwise, because I don't even find them very beautiful. I have wondered if, since Gollum and Coral (Finger Jade) are already mutations from Crassula ovata, the variegations in Legolas and variegated Gollum in some way weaken the plants, since we know that variegated plants in general are usually weaker than their green counterparts.

They are fun to grow but yes certainly more challenging than the green versions. The white variegated tissue on any variegated plant is essentially parasitic....relying on the green parts to survive. So while the white is beautiful it is always a balance. Green sported sections grow faster and stronger so you have to prune them out to prevent them from overtaking the plant, white sections are sapping the plant of energy so you have to not let them get out of balance with the green. Because the plant is producing less "food" than an all green equivalent it will always be more sensitive to errors or extremes of cultivation. I do like the look of a nice stripey green and white tube leaf though, and to grow one well is a fun challenge.

Yes, woodnative, it is intriguing how, just like our plants, we are all different. I concede that a variegated Gollum with a nice few variegated stripes can be very charming to look at, but this type is ultra-rare, and the majority, and Legolas in particular, besides being 'delicate' in constitution, resemble somewhat white worms more than anything.

Yeah, they're tricky. I'm experimenting with heavier fertilization this season.
I need mine to put on some biomass, so that I can take cuttings....but it's nearly pointless to take cuttings of predominantly white tissue, which means I need those good green and white sections to propagate.

Josh

Ewwmayo, I took a new photo of the cotyledon.

Thanks so much, that looks so cool!

The new leaves are turning powdery-white like the old ones :

Laurent - French Riviera (zone 9a)

"Oksana,

I don't know what a mono-led fixture is. I'm living in a mediterranean region (orange-tree climatic zone). I only keep inside the little Legolas and little variegated gollum + the variegated schlumbergera. The region is sunny enough to get them grow very well inside behind a window, without artificial lights."

Laurent, a "mono-LED fixture" would be an light fixture containing LED light bulbs that are all of one color. For example, in Oksana's first set of pictures the plants are under an LED light fixture in which all of the LED lights are red in color. In the second photo, the LED lights are all blue. :-)

Paul MI

it is one fixture with red and blue leds -) There are full-spectrum leds also but I don't use them.

Oksana

Oh. In that case it is not a mono-LED. ;)

Paul MI(6)

mono-led means a mono-spectrum led. In contrast to full-spectrum. Yes, my fixture is bicolor. So I can grow a definite cultivar under the definite led with mono-spectrum.

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Oksana