Bruce Bayer (1935 – 2023)

Bruce Bayer is the ultimate Haworthia authority. He spent more time exploring the veld for Haworthia than anyone has or will likely ever again. He has written many articles, starting in the early 1960s, and several books: Haworthia Handbook (1976), The New Haworthia Handbook (1982), Haworthia Revisited. A revision of the Genus (1999) and beginning in 2002 no less than 11 volumes of Haworthia Updates. Undoubtedly Haworthia Revisited is a quintessential book, but still Bruce Bayer continued his field studies tirelessly, revealing the complexity of this genus, and problems of species delineation and the application of taxonomic code to a very fluid family. Even if some of his views seem too radical for the scientific world and his opinions are still surrounded by controversy, he is backed by over 60 years of experience, research, field studies and accumulated knowledge.

Bruce searched for Truth his entire adult life. The search was a physical and spiritual one – and was part of his drive to know Haworthia. Few understood his search. Simply put, it was a mission to know and love God and by extension all of Creation. Bruce remained conscious that his mission was far from perfect, but he never lost sight of his high ideals. The physical and spiritual search continued until the very end.     

On Bruce’s journey, he motivated, encouraged, and supported many others. There are people from all walks of life who came to know and love Haworthia and the South African veld through him. It was thanks to generous landowners and farmers across the country that he could see the plants in their natural habitat – many became dear friends.

Bruce’s last post on his Facebook page was “On wings of song I will bear thee, enchanted lands to see.” His fervent wish was to return to the Enchanted Lands. No doubt the Haworthia conundrum and the other mysteries of Our Creator will be resolved there. And he can finally rest. Deservedly.

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An appreciation of MBB
by Derek Tribble

Bruce Bayer was good to us. We did not really know what we were doing – touring around South Africa searching for succulents in 1977 – with only a free tourist map as a guide! When we called at the Karoo Botanical Gardens in Worcester (KBG), we were made welcome and allowed time to take photos of the extensive private Haworthia collection. Here were Haworthia never seen in the UK: H. wittebergensis, woolleyi & springbokvlakensis. In 1980 & later, I returned on my own and was able to stay in the spartan guest accommodation. Subsequent photos included stunning novelties like H. bruynsii, pubescens & koelmaniorum which generated much interest at early Haworthia Society conventions.

Bruce struggled very publicly with Haworthia taxonomy, writing repeatedly in great detail as his thinking changed over many years. He was trying to resolve the incongruence between the Linnaean binomial system and the complex reality in the veld. Early in his writings, he spoke about hybrid swarms, but abandoned this terminology, despite identifying a need to better understand evolutionary processes. (Methods to investigate this have only become available in recent years by comparing results from nuclear with plastid DNA.) Perhaps an early decision not to recognise sub-generic sections led him down the path to splitting out new discoveries as species, many of which were lumped in later years. Some of his later writings explored the philosophy of classification and became incomprehensible to me. He will be best remembered for his excellent book ‘Haworthia Revisited’, a collaboration with Kobus Venter, Kotie Retief, and Steven Hammer, that I warmly reviewed in BCSJ 17:4 (1999) p. 198. As colour-printing became more accessible, his later publications documented the natural variability of Haworthia in the veld using photographs in perhaps more detail than any other genus of South African plants.

He was a keen observer and theorised about much more than taxonomy. Even though in a popular magazine, his article ‘The Cape flora and the Karoo – a winter rainfall biome versus a fynbos biome!’ Veld & Flora, vol.70:1 (1984) was influential in the recognition of what later became the Succulent Karoo biome, distinct from the summer-rainfall Nama-Karoo.

Bruce encouraged scientific work with succulents at KBG, but his NBI managers did not share that vision, wanting scientificresearch at Kirstenbosch and an emphasis upon education at Worcester, I believe. Eventually there was a parting of ways and Bruce moved on to other opportunities after 18 years but continued to grow and study Haworthia in his own time. We owe our current knowledge of the genus Haworthia to Bruce more than anyone else and I regret he never accepted invitations to present talks in the UK.

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A Walk To The Paradise Garden 
by Steven Hammer

From October 1985 until May 1986 I was a volunteer at the Karoo Botanic Garden. This informal, implausible, and delightful gig was suggested by its curator, Martin Bruce Bayer, who pulled tangled strings for me at Head Office. Said office, also known as Kirstenbosch, somehow finagled the legality of my non-fiscal employment. The assistant curator, Dr. John Winter, even gave me a confirmatory handshake so unexpectedly firm that I landed on his well-polished floor. I never quite recovered my equipoise.    

Then as now, given its incomparably beautiful natural setting and proximity to Cape Town, Kirstenbosch attracted ample attention and money-shedding tourists. But Karoo Garden, surrounded by succulent veld and relatively modest tillite bluffs, had its own quiet rural beauty. Above all it had MBB, its nucleus and live wire. He animated the whole place, from the labourers who trimmed drosanthemums and weeded rockeries, to the indoor people who disputed with Almighty Kew (as Larry Leach put it whilst describing euphorbias) or examined the tender flesh of Eriospermum tubers (Pauline Perry’s rueful task; there were so few tubers to work with).

My own workload was simple. I watered, propagated, and repotted the conophytums and haworthias, fed hors d’oeuvre of data to the garden’s hungry new computer, guided polyglot visitors, and helped Bruce make herbarium specimens. This last task was extensive and tended to enforce its own schedule because Bruce always wanted to document the flowers. 

The haworthia collection grew under aging yellow fiberglass.

This suited the plants peculiarly well. Sunlight was filtered but not too dim, and summer’s toastiness, as I soon learned, was mitigated. Ample side ventilation helped avoid stretching and rot. Plants sang for their official supper as a Semi-Public Display of South African Genetic Diversity, but they were mostly there for Bruce’s contemplation and taxonomic questing, for propagation, and for inertia’s own sweet sake.

Some standouts:
gigantic beukmaniis which refused to lie down on the job, leaves as skewed as Easter Island monoliths;
sleekly burnished comptonianas, self-fertile as yeast;
sordidas looking not too sordid thanks to a sprinkling of vermiculite and a sea-smelling kelp supplement;
retusa (mutica nigra) from Kransriviermond with caramel brown leaves double-dipped in lacquer. Bruce liked this particular collection so much that he asked me to take half the seed and establish an American beachhead, which I did;
dimorphas made of black obsidian;
magnifica major (as it was then) ranging between charcoal and snow;
mutica Drew all by its white-clotted self in a big asbestos-cement tray.

At the same time, the entire collection rested on an unsolvable contradiction: from Bruce’s deepest point of view, potted plants were intrinsically and always unsatisfactory. Haworthia retusa without the Kransrivier is as incomplete and nearly as dull as the Kransrivier without Haworthia retusa!

Thanks to an unusually excellent visual memory, Bruce could invoke the site and its spirit at any time – this ability was very remarkable – but that didn’t help the plants and it didn’t necessarily help general comprehension, except when Bruce presented the scene in his publications, as of course he did.

Otherwise, data-divorced unmoored plants were already close to cultivars, prone to a thousand species of chaos. For this reason Bruce insisted on making dried specimens – mummies, I called them – and on taking myriad photographs of everything in the collection, forming a permanent record.

Not as permanent as the Mona Lisa, perhaps, though even she cracks and fades. Meanwhile she reminds us of the reality of time travel.

When I look at my Haworthia retusa/mutica ex Kransriviermond ex KBG

I dive straight back into October 1985. That was a long time ago, and yesterday. And I owe it all to Bruce.