Aloe hybrid

[Cactuschris]

One of the smallest x one of the biggest, A. bakeri x A. bainsii, are many people growing this?

Chris

[Spination]

Wow, I wouldn't have known it was possible, to cross the largest tree Aloe (barberae), with something small like bakerii. Interesting.

[Cactuschris]

It geos a lovely orange in the summer, but I have yet to flower it. It makes offsets like bakeri, so I have started one with just a 'trunk' and no offsets. Will post if it ever flowers.

Chris

[Epiphyte]

Wow!!! Really cool cross!! I'm really excited to see how it turns out! I'd love it to turn out like a faster and easier ramosissima. From my perspective there aren't near enough small tree Aloes. It would be so awesome if there was a perfect continuum of branching tree Aloes from ramosissima to bainsii.

What's the backstory for this cross?

I have both species but my bainsii still hasn't flowered and it's way too tall now to easily access. My bakeri is of course easy to access and regularly flowers. I've thought about trying to cross it but never got around to it. Somebody regularly pollinates it though and I don't usually harvest the seed pods. To my pleasant surprise it has volunteered in its bowl and in a few surrounding pots. Unlike most of my other Aloes... it's in a section that I water a bit more frequently. But it has pretty excellent drainage.

Most of the seedlings look pretty uniform. But one seedling is significantly bigger than the others. The problem is that I'm not 100% certain that the seed is from the bakeri! We'll see!

A couple years ago I pollinated my tenuior with pollen from a bunch of different tree Aloes. I didn't keep track of which pollen went into which flower. But now I have 4 pretty good sized seedlings. I'm pretty sure that at least 3 of them are hybrids. At first I guessed that they all had the same father but now I'm guessing otherwise. The seedlings all got taller and heftier... and then slowly flopped over. Sheesh. Like a slow motion trainwreck! A couple months ago I potted them up and staked them. I'm hoping that as the trunks get thicker that they'll be able to support the weight of the leaves. What's kinda fascinating is that one seedling has a gazillion basal shoots, another has two and one has none! It's probably going to be a few more years before any of them flower. I'm interested in seeing their flowers... but I'm far more curious to see their mature form... such as trunk/branch thickness/quantity and spacing.

[Cactuschris]

Hi Epiphyte,
The plant came from a good aloe grower, apart from that I have no information. It makes plenty of offsets, and they root ok, seems to grow all year round if watered.
Your hybrids sound interesting, i too like tree aloes but space is a problem. I have aloe hercules, that is supposed to be quite hardy, but i will need to propagate it before trying it outside.
Regards
Chris

[Epiphyte]

Chris, thanks for the info. How tall does it get? Do you think that it might get any taller?

[Cactuschris]

I have forced a single stem to grow and it is now going to flower, interested to see what the flowers look like.
I have spares of this if anyone wants to exchange.

Best regards
Chris

[reality_velo]

Wow, very cool hybrid. Love to see what it matures into!

Id love to exchange for a pup, but i don't have much in trade.

[Epiphyte]

Thanks for the update! It's looking pretty good! I wonder how much taller and thicker the trunk will eventually get.

Please share a pic of the flowers when they open. Do you plan on pollinating them? If so I'd be interested in some trading for some seeds.

[Cactuschris]

Hi both, thanks for the reply. What are the restrictions in sending plants to ca?
Chris

[reality_velo]

Hi both, thanks for the reply. What are the restrictions in sending plants to ca?
Chris

If your inside the lower 48 there isn't an issues that I'm aware of. We ship plants all the time.

[Cactuschris]

If you would like to swap please pm me.
Chris

[Cactuschris]

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Finally flowered, lost the top flowers to drought i think.

[Marlon Machado]

Cool plant. I really like the bicolored flowers!

[Cactuschris]

Flower this year

[Epiphyte]

The spike is really nice! I like it much better than the spike on my unknown bakeri hybrid, which flowered for the first time this year... here are some pics. You can see the bowl that Aloe bakeri had been growing in. A couple months ago I completely undid the bowl and removed all the plants. In one of the photos you can see the six Aloe volunteers laid out with a mature division of Aloe bakeri on the far right for comparison. None of those volunteers have bloomed yet so I'm guessing that some of them will get even larger. They seem to be responding well to having their own pots.

The blooming volunteer germinated in a pot that was near the bowl. After I put it in its own pot it quickly grew. It seemed to bloom fairly fast, well at least compared to the tree Aloes that I've grown from seed.

I tried to pollinate the flowers with pollen from the only other Aloe that was also blooming at the time... Aloe nyerensis. I really like this species. Mine is around 5' tall, has a decent spike, and produces a good amount of offshoots which I share with friends.

A. nyerensis was just finishing blooming when the bakeri hybrid started blooming. When I pollinated its flowers, there seemed to be diminishing results so I quit trying around a third way up the spike. I managed to get four seed pods... and a random fifth pod developed towards the top of the spike. I'm guessing it was the hummingbirds, which I observed visiting the flowers, but why did only one pod develop?

Recently I sowed some of the seeds from the four pods and yesterday I harvested the fifth pod. What's interesting is that right after the first spike finished blooming a second one started growing. Back to back spiking isn't very common among my Aloes. Maybe bakeri spikes back to back sometimes? I think my Aloe africana did it once. Then again, I don't fertilize most of my Aloes, but I did fertilize the bakeri hybrid. I used slow release granules.

The flowers on the second second spike are going to start opening pretty soon. The timing is good because the flowers on my A. pluridens and A. africana should start opening around the same time. These are two of my favorite tree Aloes.

So who is the pollen parent of my mature bakeri hybrid? Maybe Aloe arborescens?

From what I've read, there's more variety in the F2 seedlings. I'd sure love to see how much variation there would be among the seedlings of your bakeri hybrid! I'm guessing that some of the seedlings would be closer to bainsii.

[Melt in the Sun]

How does the plant look now? Taller and fatter?

[Cactuschris]

Yes, looks nice epiphyte. So far i have not managed to get seed to set. Trying with one of the kg numbered hybrids, and if that fails i will hope the last flowers will self (as they sometimes do), that should give second generation forms.

Yes melt in the sun, not fast but trunking up, another flower spike on the way. I will post a picture when there is better light.


chris

[Paul S]

So, around April, then?

[Cactuschris]

Yes Paul,
And i am further north than you.....lol
chris

[Cactuschris]

Will change colour, but two flower spikes is nice

[Melt in the Sun]

Neat...it sure is staying small! Looks like it's still one head?

[Cactuschris]

Yes, and a trunkless cutting is also going to flower. Never seen any info about it, or other references. Comes well from cuttings.
Chris

[Epiphyte]

It's really interesting how dense the leaves are. My bakeri and bainesii both have more space between the leaves. Is your hybrid's leaf density a matter of nature or nurture?

Is the kg numbered hybrid one of the tabletop types? A while back I remember Karen Zimmerman saying it would be cool if there was a tabletop tree Aloe. I'd sure like to see one.

Regarding the last flowers developing seed pods... I have also observed this on some of my Aloes and have wondered why this happens. It seems like the Aloe would prefer to be cross-pollinated, but if that doesn't happen then it will settle for selfing.

[Cactuschris]

Hi Epiphyte,
I do grow plants fairly hard, so perhaps some is from nurture.
The hybrid is labelled KG324066, it is a nice, but not fantastically colourful hybrid. It just happpened to start at about the same time, so that is why I used it. Plenty of seed coming from other crosses this year.
I do wish there was a definitive list of KG and Zimmerman hybrids, info is often very hard to find.

Yes, I've seen this setting of seed on the last flowers before, a Poellnitzia rubriflora has set seed on the very last flower despite many attempts to cross it with various aloes. The flowers never open for me so surgery is needed to get to the stigma, perhaps it is my method that is wrong. Does anyone grow this plant? It is very beautiful and the flowers are spectacular.