Lithops treasures of the veldt pdf

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Most of these are ugly, wan, and denatured; their horticultural value is less than nil. Not all combinations have been tried, however, and it is far too soon to dismiss future possibilities.

In general, species within each one of the two grand groupings, yellow- or white-flowered, will hybridize; the closer the taxa, the less secure the barriers. Thus L. Green-bodied yellow-flowered lithops like L.

Hybridization with other genera has been successful in only a few cases. Nonetheless, the original xArgyrops, a year- old hybrid between a lithops and an argyroderma the exact parentage went unrecorded , is quite strong; though it flushes to an embarrassed pink every summer, it recovers each winter and is then readily propagated by division.

Its distorted fruits harbour flat sterile seeds. If they flower every year, they are happy. If they do not flower, they are underage, underlit, underwatered, or overfed or any combination of those conditions. The main goal of my own lithops-growing is to have the plants as presentable and fresh-looking as possible for as long as possible. This means that they should absorb their old leaves quickly, avoid bloating and Figure Mature seed capsules; masse ca.

Water, camera, action! Another sound goal is longevity; lithops can become one lifelong companions. Most of the plants seen in this book were sown in July and they will probably continue to grow and flower for another twenty years or more.

Figure Water, water, L lesliei seedlings en masse ca. Indeed, the best way to revive any older clustered lithops, antique or not, is to give it a new root system, either by cutting off the principal rootstock and re-rooting the plant en bloc, or by dismembering it and rooting each head separately. This none-too-solid flesh can collapse overnight. The desire to avoid rot tempts many growers into the reckless caution of thimble-watering. Yes, once in a while, perhaps monthly in summer, lithops love the equivalent of a downpour.

Regardless of rainfall regimes in their original habitats, all cultivated lithops are most responsive to water in spring and autumn. This is as true for the species which naturally receive winter rains as it is for those which receive summer thundershowers.

Lithops respond to day-length and temperature, not to the calendrical facts of April and December. Very roughly, the annual watering schedule can be as follows: Late spring to late autumn: a good watering, every 10 days or so, whenever the sides of the plants show wrinkles which persist overnight mere daily wrinkles, the result of an afternoon's heat, are inconsequential unless they are symptomatic of a pre-burn state; see fig.

Early winter: no water at all, unless the plants seem to be collapsing too drastically, or any visible and pollinated! Early spring: one or two moderate waterings, especially if the newly exposed leaves seem to be wrinkling. Terry Smale, an outstanding. English grower, tells me that late winter and early spring splashings would be inadvisable in the UK, where winter light is so lamentably feeble, and might indeed delay the resorption of old leaves.

In brighter areas — the south-western US, southern Italy and France, and the whole of South Africa — my advice might be more applicable. General note: after a particularly hot day, whatever the season, often mist my lithops in the evening.

I developed the misting habit in emulation of the nightly dews experienced in habitat. The practices given above work for me; other growers have other modes and they also work well. The Coles fussed far less than I do, and their plants were very beautiful. So much depends on the extent of the transfer of resources from old leaves to new, on the heat and aridity of the plant shelter, on the pots — small or large, clay or plastic, and on the amount of light morning sun tapering to a half-shaded afternoon is the least stressful.

Any root disturbance immediately renders well-lit lithops liable to burning, which tells us how closely linked are the fine lower roots and the of the plants to withstand heat and exposure. It takes a newly potted plant at least, two weeks to re-anchor itself, two or three months for security. But even in England they need good ventilation to thrive, otherwise a still July or August afternoon is hot or bright enough to scorch them badly.

If given too little light or too much! I am assuming that the reader has a greenhouse, but if that is not the case, a fine collection can be maintained and scorched in a sunny window. Cool nights help to redress the balance. On the other end of the scale, some! In any case, extremes of heat, cold, or brightness are sol necessary for fine colour. Truth in Packaging Litters vill grow in all sorts of odd soi mixtures, the most important point is simply that the degree of water-retentiveness of your mixture must influence your watering regime.

Even then, individual attention will always produce the happiest and most compelling results. If a mixture is very rich, some plants will tend to balloon, and even to explode, unless watering is scant. Some media e. Plenty of root-room favours the larger option, root-restriction favours the smaller, and it is only a question of personal preference, Habitat models can be found for either choice, though wild lithops very rarely grow as large as their cultivated counterparts.

The big beauttics one often sees on show benches have a surreal aspect, but they are undeniably impressive and when well-coloured can be magnificent. I prefer clay for its appearance, aeration, and durability, but I use square plastic because it is cheap and saves space and time. My pots are unseen in the slides used in this book, but my standard is the 12 x 12 x 12 cm virtual cube. Lithops can be planted in families or singly. They grow very well in crowds; they will tend to slay small and single-bodied see fig.

Generally itis best to plant only one species per container, lest unequal growth cycles cause awkwardnesses in watering or shading. But I must say that some growers plant twenty or thirty species in a single wide container, and these anti-geographic assemblages often do very well Pollination, Patience, and the Fuller Fuller Brush-Man Hisingaltendy asserted that pollination is easy I should perhaps mention a few points which might remove any ambiguities.

First of all, it normally takes two to tango: two clones, two siblings, two sole-mates, not two cuttings from the same plant, Moreover, the flowers have to be at more or less the same stage, two to five days past anthesis the initial opening.

Also, it is important to keep the flowers dry during the process; moisture blasts the petals and harms pollen as well, Conversely, it is good to give any freshly pregnant lithops a decent soaking, as this improves fruit quality. Soon after the fissure opens, the bud emerges, thrusting out its sepalled tongue; within a fortnight, often far less time than that, itis ready to open. Normally, lithops flowers expand between and in the afternoon and close around dusk.

Observing a new flower, one may notice that the pollen is not yet ripe: the anthers show little or none of their powdery burden, and the stigmas are unreceptive. The next day the petals will spread more widely opening slightly earlier than they did on the first day and the pollen begins to shed, but the stigmas are still nat receptive.

By the third or fourth day, the stigmas expand and the pollen begins to age. When the stigmas are ready, they will be visible as greenish or yellow threads amiongst the sea of yellow or white anthers. One can pick up pollen with a soft- bristled brush and gently paint it on the stigmas, repeating, the process for the next two or three days. The better your brush, the fuller the pollen- load you will transfer, so it is worthwhile to invest in a few good-quality sable brushes and treat them well.

They can be cleaned and sterilized with isopropyl alcohol; the bristles should be reshaped after each cleaning. Petals age quickly if the greenhouse is warm and the flower is at just the right stage when pollinated.

Within a week after an effective pollination, the ovaries will begin to swell as the shrinking, petals turn a final red or blackish. The former position is of course better from the point of view of the lithops, worse from that of a hungry and hasty cricket. All tangoing aside, lithops are occasionally seli-fertile.

Lithops are rather promiscuous — I once called them loving stones — and propinquity can produce unintended, forever puzzling, consequences.

Mothers-to-be should be separated widely. One can sometimes stimulate a lonely lithops by means of foreign pollen, eg.

Note that all. A few freaks have filaments without anthers, but these flowers can usually receive pollen even if they cannot offer it. The path from their cradle to your grave can be long, and interesting. As with watering, there are many methods; here I will only sketch two that work for me.

Lithops seeds last a long time; kept dry they are viable for at least twenty years. It is best to store them in the fruits, the so-called capsules. After the fruits are gingerly crushed between the fingers, the seeds can be separated out by means of graduated sieves; it is best to remove all the chaff fruit-wall fragments and any placental residues as it can go mouldy. Alternatively, one can remove seeds by soaking fruits in a cup of water; most seeds will fall out within a few minutes and the rest can be teased out, using a soft brush or fine tweezers.

Upon retrieval, seeds should be placed on a paper towel and either dried off and stored at room temperature in a paper envelope, or sown immediately. Lithops seeds respond well to midsummer- sowing in an airy outdoor frame which has a rain-proof cover. They can rot under too thick a layer. The pots should be soaked once from below, and covered with glass or plastic for a few days only.

This covering is only necessary to ensure that the seeds fully imbibe the sowing water. On the third or fourth day, the covering should be replaced with fine netting or screen, and the pots should be misted once or twice a day. Within a week, some seeds will probably have germinated; within two, most should be up. Speed of germination i partly dependent on temperature; your frame will be most effective if its temperature range lies between a low of ca.

More shading will be necessary in very bright climates. Generally, light rainfall is excellent, but it can easily become too much of a good thing, leading to complete wipe-outs.

Once every few days the mistings should be heavy, lest the pots lose too much weight, but beware of total saturation! After about three weeks the mistings can be lessened periodically.

I always add a small amount of fertilizer to the misting water, As the cotyledons fill out, forming tiny, cylindric or conical bodies, they acquire some succulence, which gives them a little — only a little — drought-tolerance, and as the bodies lengthen, they can be lightly mulched with more grit, which props them up, retains moisture, and discourages beasties like sciara flies, The pots should never be flooded; flooding invites rot.

Especially when the seedlings are tightly packed — ca. Well-grown seedlings have a burnished bronzen look — if they are too green, they are also too soft, so one should monitor light levels carefully. If they suddenly bleach to a bone-white, they have received too much light; they cannot adapt to sudden stress.

Within three months, the cotyledons should be very fat, but their largesse will soon be absorbed or usurped by the new leaves developing within them. These will break through by late autumn.

The seedlings now look like miniature adults — though their apical patterns are rudimentary, an instructive study in itself — and they can be treated like older plants, if a bit more indulgently.

Throughout the process outlined here, seedlings respond well to frequent dilute feeding. Transplanting is best avoided until the subsequent spring or summer unless you are very dexterous and like to use fungicide. In any case it is best to transplant after the true leaves are fully developed and the cotyledons have been entirely absorbed. If your seedlings have three pairs of fleshy leaves, you have overwatered or overfed them grossly! However, some stacking is unavoidable, and keeping the roots active is more important than juvenile neatness.

In your race to save time, certain seedlings will shed and acquire new leaves quickly and continuously, and it is possible to have them in flower in 10 to 12 months, Lithops also do very well when sown under lights at any time of year. Again, the covering should be removed within 4 days, otherwise the soil goes sour.

Germination is usually quite rapid under lights days though, as with outdoor sowings, some batches will do nothing for weeks and then make an unexpected debut.

Seedlings do best if the lights, and a closely placed fan, are kept on perpetually. Growth is very rapid with this method, but itis rather soft unless the pots are placed quite close to the light 15cm. After months it is best to place the pots in the greenhouse preferably under the bench at first , or in a sunny window, sheltered behind or between some larger pots.

It should be noted that seeds sometimes fail to germinate. Methods which normally work well can result ina blank pot or pots, the reasons for this being quite obscure. However, if no seeds germinate after one month, usually dry off the pot, put it in a dark corner, forget about it and then re-soak it a few months later. Sometimes I'll even put it out in the rain under a screen. However, seeds can be sown as soon as the fruits which contain them are fully dry, ca.

Whatever their age, seeds sometimes exhibit staggered germination patterns — two or three tardy waves of green over as many weeks or even months! There is, however, a slight correlation between size and mortality rates: large seeds L.

Smaller seedlings are also more vulnerable to terminal munching, of course. I should note that seedlings will happily inhabit an 8 x 8 x 8 cm pot for a year; a pot half that size will of course harbour correspondingly fewer. This presupposes that one sows the seeds evenly enough to avoid clumping. An evenly sown brood will tend to produce a solid and level mat, crowding, out algae and growing at a uniform rate. I have tried to sow seeds in large trays, individually, spacing them out widely in a grid pattern; I hoped that this would avoid the labour of early transplantation!

This practice sounded good in theory, but in practice it was not a success; after all, transplantation is actually stimulating to lithops when done at the right time. Ease and Disease enerally, adult lithops are easily managed, but they do have an odd and distressing way of rotting when one least expects it. Summer or winter, one is never quite free of the rot roulette, and there are different kinds too: the sudden jelly-rot, with its disgusting odour of bacon and old avocado, the slow and dusty dry-rot, more like the damage inflicted on old wood by termites, and the spreading rot, which slowly moves around in a community pot if one is stupid or stubborn enough not to repot the survivors of a first attack.

It is safest to water plants early in the morning, but it is not safest never to waiter! Lithops are prone to mealy bugs, especially the ones which, having explored the flowers, then invade the opened fissure. A systemic insecticide is probably the best solution for a large-scale invasion; small guerilla attacks can be repelled with isopropyl alcohol.

Root mealies can also be insidious; if they are really stubborn, a complete rootectomy is the best cure, and it may also revive the plant, as suggested above, p. One can either keep seedlings tightly screened, or train an electric fan on them. If the artificial breeze is strong enough, it will keep the flies from landing! Another kind of problem — not exactly a disease, but certainly a source of deepening unease — is the tendency of plants to develop distorted growth: the fissures show curious lacerations, and the sides show irregular streaks, as if bits of tissue had been pulled past a rasping barrier.

What makes me especially uneasy is that these distortions are far more common than they were twenty years ago. In many cases the plants grow annually more Frankensteinian, though in a few cases the process is blessedly reversed. This cosmetic damage may or may not be connected with burgeoning populations of greenhouse thrips. These thrips also attack the soft, newly forming bodies of lithops, having reached them via freshly opened fissures during the flowering season.

The flowers themselves are the primary target, but thrips tend to mill about, causing a certain amount of extra damage in the process. They can also spread viruses. Fortunately, some clever biological controls have recently been introduced. I once sent a suspiciously streaky L. A busy technician put the specimen in the lab refrigerator, and before he could investigate it, another worker had eaten the evidence, imagining it to be an exotic nougat, perhaps.

My catalogue of woe would be incomplete without a mention of the triplex syndrome: some plants develop fissures a la peace signs, each body being composed of three more or less equal leaves rather than the proper two se fig. These tend to revert to normalcy, though some individuals exhibit a perverse triplicity from birth and retain it after each successive molt. These are usually the joy or curse of a single season.

Transmantled Beauties elL-established lithops can be maintained in the same pot for decades. In I gave my last piano teacher, a man fond of the eternal symphonies of Bruckner, a clay pot of L.

Late in ! Most growers will prefer a less leisurely schedule. Certainly, if a lithops seems to be rising too much in its pot, or conversely if it has sunk toward the bottom as its compost ebbs away, or seems loose or abnormally pallid, it is time to take action.

Not only does this help to revive the plant, it also reveals the most delicate colours, because the mantle i. After replanting a lithops T usually give it a top-dressing of gravel or fine grit. Mulches reduce the need for watering and they provide a nest for any self- sown seedlings, while also discouraging any algal growth. White or pale gravel is preferable to the darker sorts; those can overheat. Such keels are seen in some lithops, usually only as elevated vestiges which have not quite smoothed out.

Schwantesia borcherdsit from Upington maintaining multiple toothy leaf-pairs as usual Figure One could say that a lapidaria is a primitive lithops, but then one might ask: what was a primitive lapidaria?

Is there any reason to suppose that Lapidaria margaretae remained stable, trapped in her ancient ancestral condition, while lithops advanced beyond theirs? It is interesting to note that Lapidaria is a monotypic genus, ie, it has just a single species, L. Though they lack the camouflaging epidermal patterns of lithops, lapidarias are nonetheless cryptic, their unfused leaves having the colour and shape of quartz shards.

This species and a few others L. If a high degree of leaf-fusion "equals advancement, one might correlate this with the fact that many of the highly fused species of Lithops L. Flowers of all three genera are wide and easily satisfied. Drawing of the Platonic lithops showing a whole plant, its leaves fused into an inverse cone. The old leaves are reduced to a crisp shell, here seen skirting the cone Taxing Taxonomy, or, Order in the Hort [Pons sense ithops is a great genus to work with, taxonomically: all of its species look like lithops.

That is what I meant above about the coherence of the genus. A few plants in other mesemb genera. See figs. The genus was published by N. Brown in It won immediate acceptance though a few botanists stubbornly plumped for the old hyper- genus Mesembryanthemum until or so. Since late 's, various grand intrageneric ions have been propounded for Lithops.

As a systematist, Nel was preceded and Succeeded by Schwantes, who recognized two subgenera based on flower colour and on the presence of short or long fissures. Hy Principal cotyledon types, short navels left and long seams right yellow-flowering species have short dimple-like fissures at the broad-topped cotyledon stage and well beyond it ; the more nearly cylindric cotyledons of —white-flowering species disregarding the white mutants mentioned above have longer seam-like fissures fig.

The American botanist Rob Wallace now recognizes three core groups, modifications of the traditional two, and a third splinter party of one the peculiar and uniquely ruby-pimpled L. The — system adopted here is purely Coleian, and even if had any taxonomic pretensions in Lithops I doubt that T would alter much of it, especially as it has internal jogic and consistency.

Cole recognizes 35 species or 34, if L. When his book appeared, L, coleorun was not yet known; it boosts the total to 36 or Some varieties are rather tenuous, as Cole himself recognizes, but then they are presented as varieties, elements which can blend into, and often overlap with, the main species.

Much of the difficulty with Lithops taxonomy revolves around the inconceivable variability within and between populations. Nel pointed out that the zone of contention is, after all, the apex of a leaf, and leaves are notoriously variable. An example: would we perceive L. Perhaps, and yet mernellii exists as a geographically separate and stable entity, not negated by the fact that it or its simulacrum also exists as a rare, pale-faced variant within certain quicksandy populations of L..

Put the other way round, var. We tend to regard the one taxon, menneliii, as a subset of the other, but that is partly an artefact of publication dates, Figure Such a flat, inch-wide flower invites the larger bees and butterflies; beetles also enjoy the copious pollen.

Itis interesting to note that floral analysis has hitherto played little role in Lithops classification fig. Apart from the issue of gross petal pigmentation, primarily useful as a clue which alerts us to other, strictly vegetative, features, there are many other points fo observe in the flower, among them: sepal number and texture; the width and number of petals; the distribution of petal pigments solidly yellow, basally white, or with a central white feather and their quality as well e.

Dinteranthus vanzylii — distinguished from Lithops by its minute seeds and bubble-celled cotyledons Figure 44b. The soft waxen leaves of Tanquana hilmarii; its discoverer, Hilmar —Luckhoff, initially likened it to a Lithops Three fruits; from the side, showing winged pedicel left ; from the top, closed centre ; from the top, but a minute after moistening right is not like the bright yellow of L.

Macroscopically, one can. But this is partly because they seem to show no spectacular modifications; they lack the baffling buttresses and retentive membranes found in the elaborate fruits of, e. As it stands, we have a simple cup with four to six rarely up to 12 partitions and no inner lids or retainers. The seeds, which are not firmly embedded, spill out during a light rain.

The Coles have analyzed the shape of the fruits; Lithops: Flowering Stones records many interesting details not quoted here. One could also consider texture; some capsules fragment readily, others retain their integrity if not their contents.

Enzymes and seminal details are beyond the scope of this book, but tannins can easily be observed on decaying leaves. Their arrangements, which were studied by de Boer, Dugdale, and latterly by Wallace Wallace, , are an integral part of the Cole classification.

In the present text I mention certain tannin patterns which help to suggest relationships. Figure 46a. Conophytum ratum from Namies; this is the pre- dormancy colour of late spring; in winter the active plants are pale green Figure 46b.

Conophytum pellucidum trumpeting forth its flowers — the petals are basally fused, unlike the free petals of Lithops, and the modest anthers hide in a deep tube In the main text below, the species are arranged alphabetically, though I would rather have chosen an order based on decreasing levels of greenness and leaf-divergence, and increasing levels of marking and fusion.

This would have been fascinating as an exercise, but probably confusing in a reference guide! One can read the list backwards Note as well that I have not even the murkiest idea regarding the placement of L. In any case many of these are obvious; that L. It would be immensely helpful to know the derivations: did an ancestral, red-speckled, pre- L.

Or from L. It does seem unlikely that the parallel ornamentations were arrived at independently. I hope that further work will address these questions of striped chickens and speckled eggs. Expressions of interior plumbing, or external decorations — or is mimicry actually involved? Why does the pulchritude seem so gratuitous? Is pulchritude ever gratuitous? And did lithops move north, or south, or did they radiate from some central point in Namaqualand? Was there one ancestral lithops or were there several?

Such questions are still unanswered. But they all have their place, and the cubistic fracturing of metaphors islands in the lip-split windows! In Lithops, anthropomorphism has truly arrived, poultry and oceans notwithstanding! The Coles employed a series of excellent terms for the head-shape of the various species bicuneate or cordate profiles, etc.

Not wishing to borrow too much, I have simplified any phrenology in the descriptions given here, and in any case the shapes are less evident in cultivated plants, which tend to inflate in ways which obscure their angles — perhaps even the Michelin man once had a washboard stomach — altering, as well, any gaps between the leaves.

Lithops have a terrifically wide palette. It is interesting to note that the pigments of wild lithops, and those of cultivated plants in good condition, are very similar; little is lost in the translation from wild to aisled. And more than that, the active shots — those showing plants cracking out of their shells like eager hicks — should give a hint of the dynamic [horticultural qualities of lithops.

Though the Terms and dlonotype: a living branch of the type specimen dividing: the way lithops multiply see fig. In some cases the walls are puify and oddly coloured; they are never patterned. One of the glories of Cole's book is that the plants are portrayed against their native rock, harmonizing or contrasting with it in fascinating ways. Here we lack this option and tried instead for the unobtrusive neutrality of clay and sand.

Chris Barnhill and spent many hours on greenhouse patrol; he did the choosing and shooting after I did the minute grooming.

Between his slides and my words we hope to have conveyed a realization of the beauty — and the fascinating cyclic nature — of lithops. Where possible we chose two or three plants of each species to show something of the range, and a few of the agglomerations sce fig.

Endearments leaf-pairs: Because the leaves are normally so closely contiguous, one tends to think of these as a single Siamese-twinned entity as in a sense they are. But it is interesting to note that the leaves do have a certain independence; it is quite possible for one leaf of a pair to sicken and wither while the other remains sound. Some of the larger plants obiained from Ed Storms in the late s had enormous poly-locular capsules.

Jumpers: those who take a broad view of the Lithops species see 1. Certainly that is untrue if one Sees a species as an assemblage of behavioural quirks. Ttis always far easier to identify a group Of lithops plants than a lone individual!

I'd prefer the French-English ovil de boeuf, used for a window having the shape of an ox eye! They may coalesce to form a generally translucent patch. The dusky dots can be seen as tiny circular obscurities within the miniature windows. Since the anatomical distinctions between these features are not quite clear to me, I tend to speak, simplistically, of spots or dots, pending — elucidations. Tanniniferous idioblasts give themselves away upon decomposition, condensing to the small blackish or reddish nuggets visible on old skins.

After all, they do function as petals! A: Man! In lithops-lore, most of these terms have also been employed via the usual humanoid identifications. They seem to float on the surface and contribute to the spectacular beauty, if spectacles can be so minute, of several species s: used in informal plural locutions, as in: 1 cultivate many bellas.

This is certainly less cumbersome than: I cultivate many specimens of Lithops karasniontana subsp. L: sensu lato, in the broad sense. If the recent positions advocated by Goldblatt and Manning for Gladiolus are adopted, well-informed, habitat-oriented splitting may come back in fashion; certainly it provides a kind of localized precision for collectors.

We have recognized variant forms as species [emphasis mine] when they differ in at least two qualitative features and also show geographic, ecological, or phenological differences from the archetype. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website.

These cookies do not store any personal information. Skip to content. This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. Privacy Overview This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Views Read Edit View history. As in the first edition, Steven Hammer with his usual mindstretching vocabulary and graphic writing style, unfolds the history of these little treasures; shows us the plants in habitat, a necessary aild if we are to be able to understand their requirements in cultivation; illustrates their distribution; introduces us to their powers of self-hiding and enlightens us about the precipitation they receive in the wild.

As recently as the s, the genus was little known in cultivation and not well understood taxonomically. I was a little disappointed because I guess I expected more recommendations for care. Many of the species listed have named subspecies or varieties and some have many regional forms identified by old names or habitat locations.

The inimitable Steven Hammer has threaded the needle very nicely. Lithops — Treasures of the Veld — 2nd edition. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Please contact the Webmaster. See all free Kindle reading apps. Customers who bought this item also bought.