Tag: Tanquana

All pictures made at Anysberg 21 April 2012.

These little gems occur on shale banks and slopes, where they are usually hard to detect. It is a harsh and arid habitat, which at first looks totally uninteresting. When you look carefully, you will however find out that these bare spots often harbour some astonishing miniature succulents like Conophytum joubertii, Gibbaeum nebrownii, G. dispar (see post 30 Jan. this year) and this Tanquana. The scarce rainfall here is often supplemented by early morning dew seeping into the fissures between the shale layers and providing just enough water for these dwarf plants. It is a hard life, especially for young seedlings (see first picture), but the advantage of a habitat like this is that there is no competition from bigger, faster growing -and more demanding- plants.
The pictures were taken near the eastern entrance to the Anysberg Nature Reserve (the first one on 21 April 2012, the other two on 27 Sept. 2010).

More pics to come.