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Robert Streul:
S. hargeisana is a fleshy, stemless plant with 4 - 8 rough surfaced leaves, cylindrical, rosulate, dark-green with lighter grey-green cross-banding, 3 - 7 inches long, entirely round in cross section except at the base, 1/3 - 1/2 thick at the base and gradually tapering more or less from the middle towards the stiff point, dried, sharp, short tip, marked with a chestnut-color band at the bottom; the upper surface with a rounded shallow channel to 1/8 - 1/3 of the leaf's length and in older, smaller leaves, the full length, with 5 - 7 well defined dark green longitudinal lines, which turn into grooves, to almost the tip of the leaf, one of them on the center of the adaxial side and through the channel, margins of the channel acute, white, membranous. For proper cultivation S. hargeisana requires strong light to develop its regular cross banding and shorter length of leaf. When grown in weaker light the plant will have longer and thinner leaves and will either lack their characteristic cross banding or they will not be quite obvious. |
