If I see a plant I don’t know I often buy it, if it isn’t too expensive, and when I saw a silver-leaved succulent that looked like a multi-headed echeveria I was intrigued. At home it grew slowly and from March until August it probably doubled in size and then produced some taller stems with a few, narrower, smaller leaves and one or two big, beautiful buds. They were unmistakably not echeveria buds and looked like giant groundsel buds but the plant didn’t look like any senecio I knew. Senecios are a big group of plants; there are more than 1000 species and they vary from dull, annual weeds such as groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) to succulent shrubs, true succulents and climbers. They are in the aster family and each flower head is composed of many tiny flowers in a cluster and senecios are not famed for their floral beauty! Most have rather inconspicuous flowers in yellow or cream.

But this one opened its buds to produce blooms in bright tangerine, approaching scarlet. The contrast with the grey leaves is amazing! Even better, the flowers last for many weeks before they fade and turn into the characteristic fluffy seedheads.

The bright, showy flowers last for weeks

A quick investigation confirmed that this was (probably) Senecio fulgens. Fulgens means bright or shining though is often associated with red (the red panda is Ailurus fulgens) and it is a native of South Africa.

It is a great houseplant, thriving on a sunny windowsill, and has been in flower since August and still has some buds to open. It is now getting more straggly and is more than 30cm across and, when flowering is over I will need to cut it back or propagate it and make some younger plants. Stem cuttings are the easiest way to propagate it but it will also make new plants form leaf cuttings so I will try that too.

And where did I find this exquisite rarity? Well, whenever I visit Ikea to get my obligatory packs of nightlights and new lamp I always buy some houseplants. They offer a limited but often odd selection of good-value houseplants and as long as you ignore the obvious casualties of their policy of not looking after the plants because the stock moves so fast, you can get some great plants. It was not named and was in their ‘Himalaya mix’ – a name that someone, somewhere must have thought made sense.

PS I later checked the label on the pot and it did say it was a senecio – I should have checked!