A few rosettes of this plant have made their way into cultivation in the three decades since its creation, but the cultivar name ‘Firebird’ has not been officially published until now. Shannon Lyons hybridized A. descoingsii with A. thompsoniae to yield this floriferous plant with spotted recurved leaves. ‘Firebird’looks like a slender-leaved version of the Bleck hybrid, A. ‘Cha Cha’ but bests it in producing conical racemes of narrow, urceolate, bright red-orange flowers almost unceasingly. Rooted offsets of HBG 89468. $8.
Published in the Cactus and Succulent Journal, Vol. 80 (2), March - April, 2008