Hechtia argentea has long been a mystery. If you are not already aware of the allure of this species, it is well worth becoming more familiar with this striking plant. It has an incredible number of long, gracefully recurving leaves densely covered with adpressed trichomes giving it a smooth silvery-white sheen (Fig. 1). Since 1884 when a female plant of the species had finally been given a partial taxonomic description by John Baker, the only living specimen officially known by botanists--and the one cited in the formal publication of the species (Baker 1896)--is the one growing in the Royal Botanic Gardens on the outskirts of London in Richmond, England. As has been unfortunately customary through botanical history (as well as in cultivation), it seems that plants in the genus Hechtia tend to be a bit of an ignored afterthought. While this might be part of the case here at Kew where they can't find any records of who collected the plant, when it was collected, or even where it came from, the more probable cause is the early era from which H. argentea was discovered and collected.

Part 1: Hechtia argentea and its Mystery

The first publication using the name Hechtia argentea was in 1864 after a specimen was entered at the International Horticultural Exposition in Brussels shown by--Monsieur Beaucarne, a notary from Eename, Belgium. At this exposition M. Beaucarne won several awards for his other new and unique plants in addition to H. argentea (Koch 1864). If his name looks familiar, it is most likely because he was the first person to produce the flowers on what we now call Beaucarnea recurvata (the very popular 'ponytail palm') in his private collection and so the genus was named in his honor. Although he appears to have been a wealthy collector of plants, no record of where or from whom he was acquiring his plants is readily available. At Kew, their plant is mentioned as having been the plant that won an award at the exposition in Brussels in 1864 but it is unclear--and probably unlikely--whether they acquired Beaucarne's specimen, or if it started by initially referring to the same species winning at the exposition, or whether Kew acquired another specimen perhaps from the same source. What is known is that Kew's specimen was first documented blooming in 1870 (Baker 1896). It wasn't until 1895 that Baker completed the botanical illustration (Fig. 2) and description for Kew's female plant (Baker 1896). The herbarium specimen at Kew was not specifically designated as the holotype specimen by Baker. Many years later, in 1987, Kathleen Burt Utley studied the herbarium specimen as part of an extended study of the genus, recognized it as the holotype, and annotated it as such. The leaf and inflorescence for the Kew specimen was taken from the same plant that can be seen growing in the Garden today. Yes, the very same plant that first bloomed at the botanical gardens in 1870 is still there, not an offset. In...