On the cover. Our cover shows off two diversions simultaneously: one involves the editor's flatbed scanner (see p 168), and the other, the involute lineage of the scannees. These cornucopian Lithops karasmontana variety aiaisensis all came out of a single seed capsule. Their mother was Petr Pavelka's PV 125, seeds collected near Ai-Ais in lower Namibia; their father was a most unusual specimen of Cole 224, raised from seeds Naureeen Cole sent to Steven Hammer in 1976. Papa's glory was the brick-red of his apex, not a color one expects in variety aiaisensis, though common enough in L. karasmontana var karasmontana, especially in the form known as L.lateritia. In 1992 Hammer pollinated Ms Brick via another Cole 224, one which had a bit of a blush. The result, after a series of back-crosses, is the strain or cultivar now known as Orange Ice (Ai-Ais being pronounced approximately Eye-Ice). In October 2002 he used the original Ms/Mr Brick's pollen on a fat but pale PV 125, hoping to improve the complexion of her/his springoffs. Most seedlings from this misalliance expressed maternal characters, but a few show streaks of Orange Ice, most easily seen on the two-headed plant near 2 o'clock on the right upper margin. All the plants have the requisite hard-edgedness, and some of the faint featherings, of a "normal var aiaisensis, in which ivory and taupe rule.
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