Years ago, my neighbor across the street realized how much my wife and I loved plants and brought us a cutting of what I later learned was Stapelia.

Steve was an ex-marine and, one of the most desciplined and real rugged men I ever knew. He had the nicest landscape in the neighborhood by far.

He was proud to relate how his mother had given him a cutting from her "cactus" 10 years earlier. Steve was sure she had owned her original Stapelia prior to his tour in Vietnam! And, I had a plant from that same plant. I'm not ashamed to say I was very proud to own that plant.

Well, Katrina slammed through our neighborhood with 13 1/2 feet of slop. The storm's rushing flood waters literally ripped all of our doors and windows off the houses. When the waters finally receded we were left with 2 feet of the nastiest salty slop you ever saw inside our once beautiful houses and covering our lawns and streets. That salty slop killed nearly everything it touched. Except WEEDS!!!

What Steve had given me was, (I believe) a "Gigantea" with a large marroon center. The pictures I see of "Gigantea" are sort of a solid beige-with-tiny-spots pattern.

Anyway, only one plant of ours survived the onslaught, a very plain caladium. We lost hundreds of plants and Steve lost just as many. I would really like to send him a really hairy "Stapelia" to his new home in Colorado. You see, Steve has never even returned to see his destroyed home. I just know he would flip-out over one of the hairy "Stapelias"!

This man endured 30 years of us raising four LOUD sons while he worked shiftwork. Never once complaining about the noise right outside his bedroom window. I will sorely miss this fine man and good friend. If anyone knows where I might procure a cutting please let me know. Ray