Crassula 'Morgan's Beauty' is a deliberately produced hybrid attributed to the Huntington Botanical Gardens in California, with parentage given as Crassula perfoliata var. falcata × Crassula mesembryanthemopsis. It is a compact cultivar grown for its silver-white waxy leaves and dense, rounded pink flowerheads that sit directly on top of the foliage.
Part of the Complete Crassula Guide.
Identification
- Leaves. Triangular to spathulate, 2–4 cm long, flat, thick, and densely packed in opposite decussate pairs. The surface is coated in a fine whitish wax that gives the whole plant a pale grey-silver appearance.
- Habit. Short, upright, clumping. Individual rosettes reach 10 cm across and stack into a low column no more than 10–15 cm tall. Offsets appear freely at the base.
- Inflorescence. A tight rounded or flattened head of small rose-pink flowers, held directly above the rosette on a short thick stem. Flowering runs from late spring through summer, and the flowerheads persist in good condition for several weeks.
- Flowers. Small five-petalled stars, 4–6 mm across, densely packed; the inflorescence as a whole is the visual attraction rather than the individual flowers.
The cultivar comes true from cuttings but not from leaf propagation, and apparent variation in named offerings mostly reflects the conditions under which the parent stock was grown rather than genetic segregation.
Cultivation
Care largely follows the pillar defaults with a few cultivar-specific points.
Light: bright, with several hours of direct sun a day to maintain the silver wax coating and to encourage flowering. Insufficient light produces a greener leaf, looser rosette, and no flower.
Substrate: firmly mineral. The parent C. perfoliata is prone to stem rot in retentive mixes, and the hybrid inherits that susceptibility. Use 60–70% pumice or coarse grit with loam-based compost for the balance.
Water: regular in the growing season once the top 3–4 cm dries; sparing in winter. Avoid water pooling in the rosette centre, which causes crown rot.
Minimum temperature 5 °C.
Propagation
Stem cuttings. Cut a rooted offset at the base with a sterile blade, callus for 5–7 days, and pot up in gritty mix. New roots form within 2–3 weeks. Leaf cuttings are unreliable for the hybrid; the leaves abscise cleanly but rarely produce plantlets.
Division of mature clumps works well and is the usual nursery method. Flowering stems do not set viable seed on isolated plants because of the hybrid's variable fertility.
Notes and Quirks
The leaves are covered in a thick epicuticular wax that comes off easily on the fingers. Handle the plant by the pot or by a single basal leaf; a repeatedly handled rosette loses its silvery look and stays that way until the affected leaves senesce.
The pink flowerhead is unusually large and persistent for the genus. If a flowerhead goes brown as it dries, cut the stalk off at the base of the rosette rather than letting it break down in place.