Jim Irvin has a knack with Cryptanthus, (as well as other bromeliads!), and has produced numerous first-class hybrids.  This is one of which he can be proud.  This hybrid, a cultivar of ‘Sweet Tooth’ x ‘Ice Age,’ and a grex mate to ‘Very Cold Tooth,’ is a dark brown, almost black plant with closely spaced cross banding of silver trichomes with dense silver white scurf underneath.  The inch-wide leaves are long and graceful, undulating at the margins in a symmetrical rosette.

*VIPP plants are Offsets

A Jim Irvin hybrid introduced in 1991 is the prodigy of Cryptanthus ‘Cloudcover’ crossed with Cryptanthus ‘Ocean Mist.’  Owing to its ancestry, this plant has the crisped edges and long graceful leaves fixed in a symmetrical rosette as Cryptanthus zonatus.  The one-inch wide dark brown pink leaves are marked with a cross banding of an undulating flame-stitch pattern of snow-white trichomes.  As the plant matures, it loses its scurfing, darkening to a brown-red as its pink offsets emerge dusted with snow-white trichomes.  The beautiful hybrid matures out to a 6-inch height with a 14-inch diameter.

*VIPP plants are Offsets

A hybrid cultivar of Cryptanthus ‘Hapa Haole’ x ‘Elaine’ by Australian, David Cross.  A full rosette of leaves to about 18 inches across.  The leaves are banded with silver over a background color of dark brown to reddish-brown, with slightly wavy margins.

*VIPP plants are Offsets, AS IS

An Arla Rutledge hybrid of unknown parentage, but most likely with Cryptanthus beuckeri in its lineage.  Very dark red and green mottling covered in fine scurf giving a dull matte finish over the entire leaf and denser near the base on very wide leaves.  Attaining 12″ in diameter with a very full round form.

*VIPP plants are Offsets