Crassula ovata ‘Hobbit’ & ‘Gollum’.
There seems to be some confusion regarding these cultivars.
Almost identical pictures are seen labelled as both ‘Hobbit’ and ‘Gollum’.
The Royal Horticultural Society says ‘Gollum’ is a synonym of ‘Hobbit’.
They are a mutation of Crassula ovata.
All descriptions say the leaves are ‘tubular’ which is incorrect.
Tubes are defined as hollow cylindrical structures – these leaves are solid.
Cylinders are defined as either solid or hollow rod-like or roller-shaped structures that are longer than wide.
Crassula ‘Hobbit’ are known as Finger or Organ Pipe Jade.
Crassula ‘Gollum’ are known as Green trumpet jade or Green coral jade.
They are shrubs that grow to resemble small trees.
Commonly seen around 30 to 50 cm high they can be 1 to 2 (3) m.
The thick branched succulent stems become woody.
Fleshy leaves are up to 7 or 8 cm long.
Leaves have the edges rolled up and fused into a solid roughly cylindrical structure typically with a depression at the tip.
The round or oblique depression can be small or large and up to around 5 mm deep.
The green leaves develop red edges in bright sun.
Plants may have some typical flat ovate to spatula-shaped species leaves.
‘Hobbit’ and ‘Gollum’ are probably best described as the 2 extremes on a spectrum of plants gron under different conditions.
I have been unable to find any patent applications so there are no defining descriptions of it/them.
Most sites have ‘Hobbit’ as plants with shorter, thinner and mostly all green leaves but a few sites have these as ‘Gollum’.
‘Gollum’ is mostly used for plants with larger reddish leaves.
J.F.
