Haworthia bomemica n.n.

Article under construction

Haworthia bomemica n.n. is related to Haworthia indigoa. The latter occurs some 70 km to the east of H indigo but on the same lattitude.  The considerable distance between the two (in haworthia language) 

The flowering time coincided with Haworthia magnifica and some other chariteristics aslo seem some link to the latter.

So both plants seem to belang partly tot the Haqworthia magnifica group as well as the Haworthia bayeri group.

I include an article by Gerhard Marx :publisched in Haworthiad 33(3) 2019

A surprising Haworthia discovery from old and thoroughly trodden territory.
Gerhard Marx


Since 1938 the Moerasrivier area south of Oudtshoorn has become
well-known as the type locality for Haworthia picta. The old
Moerasrivier farm has since been subdivided and the northern part of it
is known today as Saffraanrivier. It is on the Saffraanrivier portion
that three populations of Haworthia picta are known to be.
Some years ago I drove along the road cutting through Saffraanrivier and
while driving past a steep low hill I could swear I saw a Haworthia
flower on the road reserve. I stopped and sure enough, there were some
haworthias in flower. Initially I thought the plants to be either a form
of H. arachnoidea or H. mucronata but afterwards I gradually realised
that these are probably closest related to H. mucronata var
rooibergensis which is known from areas westwards towards Vanwyksdorp.
Jakub Jilemicky considers these plants a western extension of the H.
cooperi complex and he was quite keen to see them in habitat. Before his
visit in May 2015 I explained to him the whereabouts of the
Saffraanrivier locality and I was curious to hear what his impressions
would be upon studying the plants closely in habitat. However, he
misunderstood my directions and drove about one kilometre past the
correct hill and stopped alongside a less steep slope where there is
dense quartzite gravel on the surface. I remember stopping at this
promising-looking quartz patch years ago and finding nothing and I know
of other people who also inspected the same spot without any luck.
However, the inimitable eagle-eyed Jakub managed to find some extremely
well-hidden Haworthias there. I could not believe my eyes when he sent
me pictures of these “Haworthia bayeri”-like plants with accompanied
explanation of where he had found them! The plants in the wild do look
somewhat similar to Haworthia bayeri but smaller and even old mature
plants feature the rough epidermis normally associated with immature H.
bayeri plants.
This new discovery is less than four kilometres west of the well-known
population of H. picta which is also the type locality of the latter.
That makes this new find even more mindboggling as this area has been
explored during the past hundred years or more and no known record of
this new and exciting discovery exists!
Jakub refers to these plants as a ‘most western form of H. bayeri’ and
at first glance these plants do remind somewhat of H. bayeri. In fact,
they compare closest with the contentious variant of the H. bayeri
complex that was named ‘Haworthia hayashii’ which occurs 25 km to the
north near Oudtshoorn. The latter H. hayashii plants do also share some
similar general features with H. bayeri but tends to be smaller than
typical H. bayeri and with pale blue-grey to sea-green colouring and
flowering three months later than regular H. bayeri.
Typical H. bayeri flowers from late winter to early spring (early
August- late September) while H. hayashii and the comparable bayeri-like
H. jadea flower in early summer during November into early December. Two
other less comparable ‘H. bayeri impersonators’ must now also be brought
to attention and these are H. truteriorum and H. indigoa. In the latter
two cases the plant characters differ even more distinctly from H.
bayeri in addition to the different flowers and flowering time.
However, it should be mentioned that in all above cases it is not only
the time of flowering that differs but also the structure of the flowers
that deviates from those of typical H bayeri . The flowers of all these
‘fringe elements’ differ by having narrower, softer and thinner perianth
lobes, causing the flowers to be generally slightly smaller than those
of H. bayeri .
Since Jakub Jilemicky’s discovery of the Saffraanrivier population, the
flower features of this new find could be studied and both the flowers
and flowering time (December) do indeed link much closer to
above-mentioned cases than to characteristic H. bayeri. The flowers of
these Saffraanrivier plants are very similar to that of H. indigoa, but
the fruits of the Saffraanrivier phenomenon are much smaller.
The Saffraanrivier locality is almost exactly along the same horizontal
latitude as that of H. indigoa and the related H. truteriorum. It is
quite interesting that these three associated elements grow along the
same horizontal line of latitude. (Just north of the 34th degree
parallel south.)

The Haworthia bayeri picture is becoming more interesting and
complicated because the taxonomical placement of these elements is a
challenge in terms of truthful scientific study. Ironically to both the
layman and the abridging lofty taxonomist these can all be considered
just ecotypes of a very variable Haworthia bayeri. But the only
supportive arguments towards the latter are the superficial general
similarity in appearance and the fact they are distributed within the
boundaries of the Little Karoo. To ignore the less obvious but
distinctive morphological differences as well as the different flowering
times and flower and fruit features would drastically dilute the quality
of scientific observation supporting such a taxonomic conclusion.
However, the best solutions in life are never found in extreme
viewpoints and perhaps the answer would be somewhere in the middle. A
sensible approach would be to consider these various elements as formal
varieties of H. bayeri. The grouping under a single species name can be
based upon the shared morphological features and the geographical
proximity. The variety status in each case is based upon the clear
differences in flowering season, flower and fruit features and the
varying amounts of leaf and rosette features.
In the case of above proposal, this new Saffraanrivier population will
then need a categorizing name.