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Lithops are extremely succulent plants originating from the semi-deserts of southern Africa. Their plant body rests under ground, while on top they have transparent windows to let sunlight in for photosynthesis. A camouflage pattern on the windows lets them appear more or less like a pair of pebblestones, so hungry animals may hardly find them. I
DO NOT MISS:
Be aware that sites from the southern hemisphere
have a six-month-shift in the description of the
annual lithops growing cycle.
This was part of the private collection of cacti and succulents at Manor Nursery, Angmering, West Sussex. The collection was started in 1948. The nursery is now gone. The collection has been dispersed to various new locations.
The Lithops lobes derived from ordinary plant leaves: The top side transmits light and is hard coated for protection, the bottom side has microscopic apertures (stomata) for gas exchange. This is the same with Lithops, besides the "leaves" have got a huge water storage layer within. It is fully transparent, and photosynthesis is performed by the green cells near the sidewalls, which are the bottom side of the "leaf". Lithops are CAM-Plants, that means that they perform photosynthesis and gas exchange differently scheduled, to keep the stomata closed at daytime to reduce transpiration.
The Lithops top side is called window due to its explicit transparency. Perfect: A red tinted window! On the one hand it transmits red light for photosynthesis and on the other it prevents the plant from looking green, so plant-eating animals won't find it.
Inside the plant body, there is a next pair of lobes waiting to take over next year. The outer lobes will nourish the new lobes during their growth and are sacrificed in spring. So Lithops never afford more than two lobes, except when splitting up into two plants. When watered all time, they try to behave like "normal" plants and build up one pair of leaves after the other. This quickly causes heavy ruptures because their anatomy does not allow for that.
New plants:
I bougt some other species of Lithops at the gardening store to fill up two spare pots that remained empty after the spider mite infestation losses. I cleaned the plants thoroughly before potting them because I do not want to possibly introduce new plant pests. The big round ones are amazing, I never saw them before.
Lithops are extremely succulent plants originating from the semi-deserts of southern Africa. Their plant body rests under ground, while on top they have transparent windows to let sunlight in for photosynthesis. A camouflage pattern on the windows lets them appear more or less like a pair of pebblestones, so hungry animals may hardly find them. I like them because they look like ornamented knobs or gemstones.
DO NOT MISS:
Be aware that sites from the southern hemisphere
have a six-month-shift in the description of the
annual lithops growing cycle.
Re-potting the survivors:
After fighting spider mites with an out-of-soil quarantine I re-potted my plants. I chose more dense arrays of plants in the pot than before.
Lithops are extremely succulent plants originating from the semi-deserts of southern Africa. Their plant body rests under ground, while on top they have transparent windows to let sunlight in for photosynthesis. A camouflage pattern on the windows lets them appear more or less like a pair of pebblestones, so hungry animals may hardly find them. I like them because they look like ornamented knobs or gemstones.
DO NOT MISS:
Be aware that sites from the southern hemisphere
have a six-month-shift in the description of the
annual lithops growing cycle.
Quarantine:
I spent four weeks gradually poisoning my pots to the ultimate level with everything available, but every time after giving my Lithops a dose, the spider mites emerged again a few days later. They seemed to have a hide-out somewhere in the pot. I realized that I had only one chance to do more against them: It was October now and my Litops won't need any water until next year. So I put all of them out of the soil and washed them thoroughly, whether they had mites crawling on them or not and threw away all of the used soil mixture. I discovered white nests sticked to the roots of the infested plants and brushed them off. After that I soaked all plants with Imidacloprid (Bayer Lizetan spray) and put them onto lids of cookie tins. Now I left them in out-of-soil quarantine for two months, giving them nothing but air and light. I had to wait until the last mite hatched from its possibly remaining egg to die outside. I lost some Lithops which sidewalls were damaged by the mites too much. They could not keep their water and dried. Some others were attacked by fungus because the total absence of soil probably lowered their immunity.
Lithops are extremely succulent plants originating from the semi-deserts of southern Africa. Their plant body rests under ground, while on top they have transparent windows to let sunlight in for photosynthesis. A camouflage pattern on the windows lets them appear more or less like a pair of pebblestones, so hungry animals may hardly find them. I like them because they look like ornamented knobs or gemstones.
See them GLOW:
www.flickr.com/photos/yellowcloud/sets/72157612365799796/
and bloom:
www.flickr.com/photos/yellowcloud/3931605460/in/set-72157...
or sliced up:
www.flickr.com/photos/yellowcloud/sets/72157611621398059/
and the rest:
www.flickr.com/photos/yellowcloud/sets/
DO NOT MISS:
Be aware that sites from the southern hemisphere
have a six-month-shift in the description of the
annual lithops growing cycle.
Do you know the 1980s (low-budget, yet thrilling) SciFi series from the BBC named "The Tripods"?
Now this thing here has to be the ultimate Tripods fan's houseplant: A three-leaf Lithops. They are the "Four-Leaf Clovers" amongst the ordinary bilateral Lithops, and I found this one in the gardening store lately.
Have a look at the BBC's homepage and see the resemblance of this Lithops to the alien Master's eye.
Links for you Lithops fans:
www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/tripods/
in particular: www.bbc.co.uk/cult/classic/tripods/gallery/16tripod.shtml
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tripods
www.diedreibeinigenherrscher.de/
Links for you Tripods fans:
Lithops (living stones) from the Deserts and arid regions of South Africa.
Martin
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Administrator of:
All things beautiful in Nature Group