Tag: South African succulents

Crassula macowaniana (papierbasplakkie)

Usually this is a robust, much-branched shrub up to over a meter tall, but in the Richtersveld it is sometimes only a few centimeters tall with creeping branches.
Its Afrikaans name (paperbark Crassula)  refers to the flaking bark covering the branches.
The leaves are variable in shape and size, linear to sword-shaped, green to brown or reddish, 25-60 (-80) mm long, and 3-15 mm wide. They have acute tips, but often these become dry and fall off (see last picture).
The flowers are white (often tinged pink), tubular, and 2.5-4 mm long; they appear in Oct.-Dec.
This species occurs from southwestern Namibia to near Clanwilliam, among boulders and on rocky, N-facing slopes.

Plant poacher punished

Last week, US citizen Kalman Kaminar was sentenced in the Cape Town magistrate’s court to two years’ imprisonment, suspended for five years on condition that he was not convicted for illegal possession of protected succulent plants in that period.
He was also fined R500,000, declared an undesirable person and banned from entering SA.
This is the result of an arrest made by CapeNature officials in November 2019 after catching Kaminar and his succulent plant tour guide, David Cummings in the Robertson area.
At the time of their arrest, Kaminar was found with 354 plants, of which 337 were protected. Others were found at a guesthouse he was staying in, raising the total of plants obtained without permission to 738 — valued at R780,902.
Further investigation revealed that Kaminar arrived in the country on October 29 2019 on a guided tour for various succulent plants. He had a detailed itinerary with multiple stops in the area where the plants are found, detailed information on plant localities, place names and GPS co-ordinates of specific plants. He also had a five-page price list titled “Kal Kaminar — Never Enough Cactus. Hunting Fall Plant Sale 2019 Labels”, which listed various South African succulent plants.
It became clear in court that Kaminar was linked to a nursery named Never Enough Cactus in Los Angeles, California. He also has a Facebook page bearing the same name.

It’s to be hoped that this verdict sends out a strong signal to others not to steal plants from the wild.

Mesembryanthemum liliputanum (Phyllobolus abbreviatus)

Usually, this dainty geophyte (up to 5 cm tall) only has a few leaves and flowers on slightly woody stems produced from tuberous roots.
The leaves are 4-ranked and almost cylindrical, they are covered in big and beautiful water-storing bladder cells. The pale yellow flowers are about 2 cm in diameter and appear in August-October.

Occurring on shale or loamy soil covered with quartz pebbles in the Vanrhynsdorp area.

Mesembryanthemum subtruncatum

What I find intriguing in this little annual, is the way the flowers open and rearrange their petals.
The flowers appear in October, are pink with a white or straw-coloured base and may be up to 2.5 cm in diameter.
The plants are up to 10 cm tall and 15 cm in diameter; the leaves are club-shaped, bright green but turning reddish when the flowers start appearing.

In the Tanqua Karoo and Little Karoo the species is locally abundant in disturbed places (usually in quartz).

Lampranthus watermeyeri

In suitable climates, this robust shrub with its beautiful flowers would make a nice garden plant. In nature, the species is found on sandstone outcrops and in sandy soils on rocky slopes, from Hondeklipbaai to Lambert’s Bay and inland as far as Worcester.
The plants are sparsely branched, usually erect (up to 50 cm tall), but sometimes creeping. They have triangular to almost cylindrical leaves, 2-4 cm long and 0.5-0.6 cm in diameter.
The flowers have long stalks and are mostly solitary; they are up to 7 cm in diameter, usually white but sometimes pink or magenta, without staminodes; they appear in June-November.

Cheiridopsis peculiaris (eselore)

A peculiar species indeed and therefore easy to recognise.
The plants are up to 5 cm tall, usually with up to 3 branches. They form two types of leaf pairs: in the first one the leaves are flat and largely free. In the second pair they are upright and fused for more than half their length; this pair becomes dry and papery in summer, so that the new growth is protected from drying out.
The flowers very large (up to 6 cm in diameter) and appear in Aug.-Sept.

Found on shale flats and gneiss slopes in northern Namaqualand (from Springbok to north and west of Steinkopf), an area with 100-200 mm rainfall per year (in winter).

 

 

 

 

 

Quaqua (Caralluma) ramosa

Because of its unusual stems, this species is normally easy to recognise.
It occurs in the Little Karoo and the southwestern Great Karoo on lower stony slopes and hilltops, usually inside or next to other bushes.
The flowers appear normally in March-May, in small clusters near the top of the purplish to greyish green stems. They emit a strong smell of buck or sheep urine.

 

Quaqua (Caralluma) mammillaris

Of all species of Quaqua, this is the one with the widest distribution and also probably the best known.
The plants form vigorous clumps of up to 60 cm tall and wide.
Even when not in flower, the plants are usually easily recognised by their size and the hard, yellow-brown spines. The flowers appear in March-June and emit a very unpleasant smell.

Occurring in a great variety of habitats from southern Namibia to Rietbron in the Great Karoo and Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo.

Bijlia dilatata

This is one of the more easily recognized mesembs, only known from the Prince Albert area, where it occurs on flats and hills with broken dolerite and quartz gravel.
The old name Bijlia cana cannot be used anymore; vernacular names are Prince Albert vygie, pangavygie and skewevygie.
The plants grow in small clumps of smooth and hard, boat-like but very asymmetric leaves, which are almost as broad as thick in the upper half and pale greyish green to pinkish/yellowish white.
In July-August they produce bright yellow or orange-yellow, short-stalked flowers to about 3.5 cm in diameter.

 

 

 

Aloe longistyla (Karoo aloe, Karoo aalwyn, ramenas)

Unlike most other dwarf South African Aloes, this species is usually single, but sometimes 2 or 3 rosettes are formed and rarely even up to 10.
Each rosette consists of 20-30 greyish-green to bluish-green, waxy leaves, 12-15 cm long, with soft to hard white spines on both sides and on the margins.
The inflorescences are simple and dense, 15-25 cm tall with very thick stalks. The flowers are about 5.5 cm long (remarkably large for such a small plant) and have a very long style (=longistyla); they appear in June-August and are salmon pink to coral-red.

Usually growing in the shade of small shrubs, the plants occur on stony or sandy flats, sometimes on gentle slopes, from Laingsburg and the Little Karoo to Middelburg and Makhanda (= Grahamstown) in the Eastern Cape. Unfortunately, the plants are short-lived and don’t grow well in cultivation, not even in the area where they occur naturally.