Sempervivum 'Black Beauty' is one of the better Sempervivum cultivars and stands out in a sea of mediochre cultivars by virtue of its dark maroon-purple foliage. The reality of Sempervivum cultivars is that very few of them are in any way distinctive and with so many just looking much the same as the next it is a reasonable debate as to whether or not they actually deserve a separate name at all. To add to this, Sempervivums are constantly changing their colouration depending not just upon the changing seasons but upon the prevailing weather conditions over shorter periods of time and the varying elemental and climatic stresses that they are subjected to. This rather sorry and nondescript state of affairs is exacerbated by a steady stream of 'product' that arrives from Europe and which ends up in most garden centres labelled simply as 'Sempervivum'.

What a welcome relief it is therefore to grow 'Black Beauty', a cultivar whose deep dark foliage varying from reddish-maroon through to purple and purple-black always manages to favour an admiring gaze.