Succulent stampede!
South African plants sell for four-figure sums in online auctions
Anew collecting mania for unusual and rare succulents has suddenly erupted in Asia, with prices surpassing even those of rare snowdrops. The global phenomenon is being acted out online, with buyers happy to pay thousands of pounds for an individual plant in a 10cm (4in) pot.
Over the past few months, online auction site eBay has been the hotbed for some extraordinary buying activity. Sellers from the UK and continental Europe (notably Holland and Hungary), the USA and Japan have been targeted by eager collectors from South Korea and China, vying to purchase plants that just a few years ago would have achieved a modest few pounds. One Chinese bid reached an incredible £26,000, although the bidder subsequently defaulted, and plants are now regularly changing hands around the globe for prices in the region of £3,000.
Fuelling the current spending spree are two South African succulents, the ice-plant relative conophytum, and plover eggs plant, or adromischus, which resembles a cluster of maroonspotted pebbles. Distinctive or unusual forms with striking markings or colourations, of known wild provenance or pedigree, are particularly highly prized. A clump of Conophytum pageae recently sold for £3,550, and a specimen of C. turrigerum for £2,760. Seed sales of the diminutive plants have also been spirited with many lines selling out.
With adromischus, prices for slow-growing or rare forms also achieve up to £3,000. The most desirable seems to be A. marianiae hallii from South Africa’s Skimmelberg district, with even cuttings or leaves of this form fetching over £600. Inability to mass produce conophytum and adromischus by tissue culture have kept prices high, unlike other rare forms of succulents such as haworthia, whose prices have fallen.
Motivation behind the market is still a matter of conjecture, with a personal desire to possess rare, expensive plants, and an ambition to develop an indigenous specialist nursery or breeding trade possible conclusions. How long it will last nobody knows, and it may be that a new type of plant will soon become the next fad.
One noted UK grower observed that this trade could also put pressure on wild populations, saying: “Two forms of the widespread Conophytum pageae, with red sides and fissure, are each restricted to just one locality and could be collected out.”