miniatures Archives - Page 4 of 11

Gibbaeum (Muiria) hortenseae

These peculiar and very distinctive plants form little clumps of soft and velvety-hairy* leaf-bodies which are about 4 cm tall and 3 cm in diameter.
During the long resting period, the bodies are completely enclosed in the dry sheath-like remains of the previous pairs of leaves.
Because the leaves are completely united, the flowers have to rupture the tops of the bodies in order to emerge. They are about 2 cm in diameter, white to mauve and appear from November to Januari.
The plants are locally abundant on quartz outcrops, but are known from only one location (west of Barrydale in the western Little Karoo), in a highly saline area. They grow together with G. album -see first picture- and sometimes hybridise.

In his book Flowering stones and Midday flowers, Gustav Schwantes dedicates nearly 3 pages to this species and he is clearly highly impressed by it, as witnessed by the following remarks:
“The plant exhibits the highest expression of leaf succulence in the whole plant kingdom.
There is nothing of greater interest among the Mesembryanthemaceae than this living creature which is so unusual in shape and structure”.

*the hairs are among the longest in the family.

Crassula alpestris ssp. massonii

Four of the six species belonging to the section Columnares of Crassula are more or less well known (barklyi, congesta, pyramidalis and -of course- columnaris).
One other (C. multiceps) I have never even seen and the subject of this post is not widely known either.

It is a small, more or less erect plant, 8-25 cm tall when in flower, sometimes with several short branches at the base. The green to brown leaves are normally all about the same length (usually 5-8 mm but sometimes to 1.5 cm). They often covered with sand particles.
In September-November, the main stem bears many small rounded inflorescences on the upper part of the flower stalk.

The plants occur from Vanrhynsdorp to Calvinia, Worcester and Montagu on sandy or gravelly slopes (often facing south).

Oophytum oviforme

Old plants of this species form clumps with up to 20 egg-shaped (=oviform) bodies, which are 1-2 cm tall and 1-3 cm in diameter.
Especially when flowering, the very dense stands in which they grow present an unbelievable show. The white to rose-pink flowers appear in August-September.

The plants occur on quartzitic flats and slopes in the southern Knersvlakte, where the rainfall is on average about 125 mm per year (mainly in winter).

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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.

Crassula tecta (part 3 of 3)

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crastect 7675 2012-05-06

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Crassula tecta (part 2 of 3)

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crastect 2011-11-06 7073

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crastect +avonpapy 0409 — Cheek by jowl to Avonia papyracea

Crassula tecta (part 1 of 3)

With their leaves covered in big, coarse papillae (tecta=covered), these great little plants are unmistakable. The papillae protect the leaves again too intense light and strong wind, thereby reducing transpiration.
Some forms of Cr. namaquensis look similar, but the papillae are different and the plants occur further north and west.

The rosettes are 2-6 cm in diameter and often much branched; they bear leaves 2-3.5 cm long and 0.5-1.2 (-1.5) cm wide, the old ones remaining attached to the stem.
The flowers are white to cream and appear from April to June.

The plants are sometimes locally abundant on gravelly plains and lower slopes throughout the Little Karoo and eastwards to the Steytlerville area.

Bulbine haworthioides

Comparing the first three pictures (taken in the wild) to the fourth (taken in cultivation), it may be hard to believe that they represent the same species.

The plants occur in quartz gravel on hillocks on the southwestern Knersvlakte.
They are geophytes, with a tuber up to 1.5 cm tall and 2 cm wide and 8-14 leaves, which are about 5 mm wide and die back at flowering.
The inflorescence is to 15 cm tall, with about 10 flowers, appearing in late spring / early summer (October-November).

bulbhawo 2010-08-27#114

bulbhawo 2010-08-27#110

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Euph stapelioides

These peculiar little plants occur in the northwest corner of the Richtersveld (Oranjemund to Koekenaap), where they form rather dense mats.
They have tuberous roots and tough and fibrous aerial stems, which are more or less terete, 30-100 mm long and 2-5 mm in diameter. The stems do not stick out more than a few cm above ground, as a result of the continuously blowing sand-blasting winds; they are protected by a thick leathery skin.
The flowers appear from April through September and are usually yellow-green (Williamson in his Richtersveld book gives the colour as mainly chocolate to orange-brown).

Bulbine mesembryanthoides (part 3 of 3)

Subspecies namaquensis differs from its sibling by having no more than two leaves, one of which is usually inconspicuous.
The inflorescence is shorter (5-10 cm tall) and always single and the filaments have a double tuft of hairs.
These plants occur only in the Northern Cape, from Springbok to the Richtersveld in gravelly places.