Origin and Habitat: Garden origin (Nursery selected cultivar)

• Manfreda undulata cv. Chocolate Chips
• Manfreda cv. Chocolate Chips

Description: This is one of the best Manfreda cultivar with particularly well spotted leaves with pronounced wavy leaf margins. It forms a sprawling, wriggly mass that is really characteristic.The eye-catching foliage is the real reason for growing ‘Chocolate Chips’ manfreda. It’s a small low-growing plant, despite its grandiose flower, so it works best in a container or a raised bed, where you can really appreciate it. This plant was selected by Carl of Yucca Do Nursery from a group of Manfreda undulata spotted seedlings from Mexico.
Stem: Very short, invisible growing underground, tuber-like, conical larger than tall.
Roots: Swollen, succulent about 5-8 (or more) mm wide.
Rosette: Winter deciduous, less than 10 cm tall and by 30-60 (or more) cm wide, laying flat on the ground or (if potted) curving following the shape of the pot, radiating out to form a starfish-like shape.
Leaves: 15-50 cm(or longer) by only 2,5 cm wide, strappy, rubbery, lizard-like, channelled down the face, very wavy, glaucous dark green and heavily spotted purple to chocolate with very small, tan and not sharp marginal teeth. The leaves are not as rigid as an Agave, so they arch elegantly. The plant will lose its leaves in winter but return from the roots as spring arrives.
Inflorescence: It forms a 90-180(240) cm tall green-aquamarine spike.
Flowers: Flower buds green-aquamarine, perianth tube 8 mm long, segments greenish about 16 mm long, filaments very long burgundy brown with yellow anthers giving a spidery appearance to the plant.
Blooming season: Bloom stalks appear in late Spring and flower in June. Unlike agaves, manfredas don’t die after blooming, and once established they’ll bloom annually.

Cultivation and Propagation: Well-drained soils are best for this drought-tolerant rock garden or container plants they restart to grow in spring, as long as they are planted in a well-drained spot where winter rains will not rot the roots. Manfreda's are drought tolerant in the ground once established. They can tolerate poor soils or are great for containers.
Propagation: it offsets very slowly hence most of the plants on the trade comes from tissue culture. Use a succulent potting mix enriched with leaf-mould and turf, just be sure to give it good drainage. And unlike many more-tender succulents, you don’t need protection from the sun. r.
Use: This desert perennial is a great accent to garden borders, rock or container gardens.