Aizoaceae (Mesembryanthemaceae) Archives - Page 9 of 22

Trichodiadema peersii

According to the literature, this is a more or less erect shrub up to 9 cm tall.
The leaves are 5-8 mm long and 4 mm wide and thick, tipped with a diadem consisting of 4-9 bristles*.
The white flowers are about 3.8 cm wide and appear in spring and summer: Sept.-Dec.; they produce fruits with 5 or 6 compartments.
The plants occur in the Willowmore district.

* In some of the plants shown here, the diadems have many more bristles. Because all other characteristics agree, I take it all pictures represent the same species.

Conophytum meyeri (part 1 of 2)

When a species has many synoniems (16 in this case), one cannot help but wonder what that means. There may be a couple of reasons for the plethora of names, but in this case the most likely one is the species being so highly variable. Understandably, this makes it often difficult to positively identify it. The situation is further complicated by the fact that the species often grows together with C. bilobum and hybridizes with it, resulting in swarms of plants with intermediate characters.

The plants form small or large cushions (up to 30 cm in diameter), which may be straggly or neatly domed.
The bodies are up to 2.5 cm long and 1.5 cm in diameter, heart-shaped to nearly spherical, usually slightly bilobed and sometimes slightly keeled. The keel lines are often red, the fissure zone has small, windowed patches on either side and the skin is pale green to yellowish green or greyish green, smooth or velvety-papillate and often spotted.
As a rule the flowers are yellow (rarely pure white), with petals often drooping. They appear in March -June.

The plants occur mostly in the western Richtersveld on granite, gneiss, sandstone or quartz slopes -often in shade.

All 3 pictures taken 6 Oct. 2011.

Cephalophyllum tricolorum

I suppose that few people will get excited about a Cephalophyllum without flowers, but when flowers are present, it is quite a different story. In this case, the flowers are up to 5 cm in diameter, with yellow petals and orange stamens with brownish to purple tips. They appear from June through September.
The plants are to a meter in diameter and have a very compact centre and creeping branches. The leaves are rather long (8-12 cm) and round with trigonous tips; dark green to greyish.
The fruits have stalks that don’t last very long and are classified as tumble fruits.

The species occurs in dry fynbos and low open karroid bush on sandy to loamy soils from the Knersvlakte to Nieuwoudtville and Clanwilliam. Most of the rainfall occurs in winter (100-200 mm per year).
Because the plants can quickly colonize a site, it can be a very useful species, but unfortunately it is reluctant to flower in cultivation.

Tanquana prismatica (part 1 of 2)

There are only three species of Tanquana; the other two being T. hilmarii and T. archeri (which I have never seen). All three used to be called Pleiospilos because of the dotted leaves, but actually the two genera are not closely related.
Over time T. prismatica may form clusters of up to 30 branches. The leaves are unequal, egg-shaped in young plants but more oblong later, with a length of 2.5-4 cm.
The strongly scented flowers are to 4 cm in diameter and appear from February to May.

The plants are not uncommon on stony flats in the Ceres-Laingsburg area, where they receive 100-150 mm rain per year, mainly in winter.

Below are some pictures to give you an idea of the conditions in the plants’ habitat.

Drosanthemum eburneum

Eburneus means ivory-white and refers to the colour of the flowers. These appear from June through September and are up to about 3 cm in diameter, rather big for the size of the plants.
The leaves are densely covered with papillae and 1-2 cm long.
The species has a relatively small distribution area in the southwest corner of the Great Karoo, from Sutherland to Matjiesfontein.

Stomatium difforme (part 2 of 2)

These pictures were taken in June and July (winter).

stomdiff 2009-07-03_DSC2046
stomdiff 2009-07-03_DSC2051 stomdiff 2009-06-06_DSC1958 stomdiff 2009-07-03 2049
stomdiff 2007-07-03_DSC2047

Stomatium difforme (part 1 of 2)

Like other Stomatiums, these plants form small to medium-sized cushions, which over time often die down from the centre.
The leaves are spatula-shaped to three-angled in cross-section and distinctly broadened towards the tips. The margins usually bear 3-6 (but sometimes up to 18) teeth, whereas the keel is either smooth or decorated with 1-3 teeth.
The flowers appear in September; they open in the evening, are to 22 mm in diameter and have bright yellow petals with red tips.
The plants are found in the southwest corner of the distribution area of Stomatium, on shallow gravel and stony ground in the Sutherland-Laingsburg area, where it can be quite cold in winter.

The pictures were taken in spring and summer, between mid October (#1) and mid January (#4).

Cheiridopsis namaquensis (part 1 of 2)

One of the many older names for this plant is Mesembryanthemum cigarettiferum.
Gustav Schwantes in his magnum opus “Flowering stones and Midday-Flowers” (1957) gives a wonderful description of the species, referring to that name as follows:
“…It was a small, tufted, branched plant, on which were a number of cylindrical structures with dry skins like paper bags; from each of them projected the tip of a pair of leaves at rest within. These paper bags were formed by the drying up of earlier leaf pairs which had been joined for a long way up. The young pair of leaves inside them was. however, much more deeply divided. The surrounding bags reminded Berger so strongly of the paper mouthpiece of a cigarette that he gave it the very descriptive name of Mesembryanthemum cigarettiferum, the Mesembryanthemum bearing cigarettes. The leaves at rest within the bags, when the plants had been potted up and started into growth, grew out of the bags and developed into thick, narrow leaves such as are often found in the Mesembryanthemaceae and produced from the centre an equally narrow pair of leaves, which, however, were joined for a considerable distance so that only the extreme ends of the leaves appeared as free tips. Within this pair of leaves, which looks like a cylinder with little horns at the top, the young, but deeply divided, pair develops; it draws on the pair surrounding it so that this finally becomes the protecting skin, the paper bags referred to above. Clearly this is a case of one of the many interesting contrivances for protecting the young growth from the rigors of the dry period. This protection is achieved here in the same way as in Ruschia pygmaea (see picture #2, FN) and many other species of Mesembryanthemaceae.”

The plants form compact clumps with many branches, up to 20 cm in diameter, with
light blue-grey to green-grey leaves.
The flowers appear from July to October and are about 4.5 cm in diameter; they open in the early afternoon.
Widespread on shale slopes and flats at an altitude of 300-950m from Namaqualand to the western Little Karoo and the only Cheiridopsis that occurs this far south.

Pictures taken near Matjiesfontein on the following dates:
#1 31 Jan. 2009
#2 18 Feb. 2007
#3 and #4 17 May 2008

Gibbaeum velutinum

With their broad, boat-shaped, yellowish-green leaves, these plants rather look like Glottiphyllums, but the cover of short soft hairs will soon tell you differently. The leaf pairs are very unequal, with the longer leaf up to about 5 cm long.
The flowers are 2-2.5 cm in diameter, usually pink-purple with a darker purple mid-stripe, and appear in late spring (mainly October-November).
In the western Little Karoo (from Barrydale to Muiskraal), the plants are often abundant on shallow clay soils in the shade of bushes.
The species is similar to G. schwantesii which is more robust, does not have its stem embedded in the ground and is much rarer (known from only one locality).
The first three pictures were taken in summer (two days ago), the last one in autumn (13 March 2007).

gibbvelu DSC_1819 — Close friends with Haworthia mucronata

Marlothistella uniondalensis

Both species in this genus (the other one is M. stenophylla) are characterized by having thick, branched tap-roots.
In this species the leaves are up to 45 mm long and about 5 mm wide.
The showy flowers are often striped and appear in July/August. At least that is what the literature tells us. The photos below however were taken at the end of October.
The plants occur in open patches in grasslands, fynbos or karroo vegetation from Beaufort West to Uniondale, Prince Albert and Oudtshoorn. Again: that is according to the literature, but the pictures were taken rather further west, near the northern entrance to the Seweweekspoort.