How to quickly tell apart Peach Egg, Peach Beauty, and Ellen
Ever since I got hooked on the idea of a ten-mile peach grove, I've been dying to buy up all the Peach Egg succulents and plant them. But then I ran into its two sister varieties, and before I knew it, I'd bought the wrong ones. You can't blame me for having a poor eye - buying succulents online is all about the pictures, and after a long journey back they lose their condition and all look about the same. Besides, there's a saying in the succulent world: a well-grown Ellen is a Peach Egg, and a poorly grown Peach Egg is an Ellen. You can imagine how similar they are. So today let's use our sharp eyes to tell these three sister varieties apart.
The prerequisite for telling them apart is that you have to own all three succulents, so you can look at them more directly. Otherwise, just talking about it in the abstract is really hard to picture.
Look at the leaves
Peach Egg, as its name suggests, has round, plump, fleshy leaves, just like a newborn baby. Peach Beauty's leaves are slightly pointed at the tip - think of a beauty's widow's peak; after all, she's a beauty and has to keep her figure. Ellen's leaves, by comparison, look flatter and more angular, like a flat-chested girl with no curves, and if conditions aren't right, it easily gets a pockmarked face. There's still a prerequisite for comparing leaves: you need to grow them into some decent condition. Otherwise they're all ugly and underdeveloped and look about the same. But any leaf with a little pointed tip is definitely not a Peach Egg.
A little side note here, mainly for telling Peach Egg and Peach Beauty apart: Peach Egg leaves are whorled. What does whorled mean? It means the leaves are arranged tightly around a single point. Peach Beauty leaves are alternate, meaning they're not arranged around a single point but in orderly layers at different heights. This is also the biggest difference between these two succulents.
Look at the shape
Peach Egg is the small and cute type; Peach Beauty is the simple and rugged type; Ellen is similar to Peach Egg, but the leaves already distinguish it well. Which type do you prefer? I like them all - don't call me a playboy. But if you come across a carefully cultivated Peach Beauty, it's still hard to tell apart even with sharp eyes. So I usually buy seedlings from a greenhouse, because they're easier to distinguish. I can't bring myself to buy a Peach Beauty thinking it's a Peach Egg - it'd break my heart and my wallet.
Look at the color and whether there's powder on the leaf surface
First, the color. Peach Egg is generally bright red, with the color transitioning from pink to pinkish-purple, and less powder on the surface - but once you wipe off that powder, its color is bright and vivid. Peach Beauty's color goes from white to pink, generally a pale pink, with a thick layer of powder on the surface. Ellen has some powder with a hint of pale green, and the leaves don't reflect light after the powder is removed.
Look at the flowers
That is, look at the flower stalks. But most growers cut them off as soon as they spot them to avoid wasting nutrients. Still, the flower stalks and blooming situation are very intuitive for telling them apart. For example, when Peach Egg blooms, it has many branches, and the flowers are star-shaped. Peach Beauty's flower stalks look like strings, and the flowers open facing downward, hanging a bit like wind chimes - very beautiful.