Lithops fulviceps 'Aurea'

The new leaves are still working their way out. Looking good.

Lithops bromfieldii flower

It's that time of year again, time for many of the mesembs to be flowering. First off, one of the nice yellow flower of L. bromfieldii. A wonderful surprise during these shortening Autumn days.

Lithops optica 'Rubra' C287 two-year olds

Obviously one of the seeds was not 'Rubra' - or perhaps a reversion - but they're doing very nicely.

In the next couple of posts I'll focus on Lithops for a bit.

More Lithops flowers

Lynn-Marie was checking on the lithops today and couldn't resist some more flower pictures. So, naturally, we share them with you!

Lapidaria margaretae

I actually had time to be in the greenhouses for a bit today; I had to get the heaters going as the weather is now getting a bit chilly. These plants have a growing habit which is very similar to Lithops, but it has more leaves at a time. The flowers are big and impressive, with upright stamens.

Lithops aucampiae ssp. aucampiae v. koelemanii C016

These are the nice krinkly faced L. aucampiae var. koelemanii C016. And they don't have the excuse of age like we do :) .

Lithops pseudotruncatella subsp. pseudotruncatella var. riehmerae

Another slight variation on Lithops pseudotruncatella.

Lithops marmorata

Lithops marmorata isn't flowering currently, but the plants themselves are worth a picture. These are a little crowded and are in need of transplanting, but that's for later.

We're into our Fall rains now, with an inch of rain expected again tomorrow. Our hearts go out to those on the Eastern seaboard of the United States as Sandy slams ashore. Hang in there folks!

Lithops schwantesii and L. karasmontana 'lateritia'

I finally had some time to get some photos today, taking a break from all the rain (and fairly warm weather) we've been having. We've also been feeling a bit under the weather.

The yellow flowered plant is Lithops schwantesii (grown from seed from the Taras Nature Preserve), and the white flower in the foreground is Lithops karasmontana 'lateritia'.

Lithops karasmontana C169 (Opalina)

No flowers today, but there is this photo of 'Opalina' - Lithops karasmontana (Opalina) C169 - to be precise.

Enjoy your plants!

Lithops aucampiae (Kurumon form)

This is a seed grown Lithops aucampiae Kurumon form. The ones in the back, including the one about to flower, are lithops terracolor seedlings, a couple years old.

Lithops karasmontana var. bella

Then there's these little beauties: Lithops karasmontana var. bella. We don't have a lot of these at this time; they go fast when we do.

Lithops lesliei var. venteri

Our lithops are going through flowering conniption fits right now. (OK, not really conniption fits, which refers to "a fit of anger or panic expressed loudly." No anger here. Just a lot of bodacious flowers!) We must have 20 or more flowers at a time. This one is Lithops lesliei var. venteri in the early stages of opening up wide.

One factor is that all of our lithops are now under lights for the winter, and they love it.

Variegated Lithops

Someone recently asked, "What happened to that variegated lithops plant you blogged about some time ago? Well, this is the answer. It's different, but still variegated. It was purchased in 2007 at a small nursery on the way to Barstow from Mojave and it continues to amaze us.

 

No catchy title tonight, though several suggested themselves. But I think I'll stick to descriptive titles and leave the cutesy to others. Nevertheless, I'll certainly check the stats to see if the less descriptive and more exciting titles make a difference...:)

Lithops pseudotruncatella

This picture shows some of the plants still in a juvenile stage and others with more separated leaves. Endemic to Namibia, they are quite variable but always interesting. These plants didn't have collection numbers or C numbers connected to the seeds, nor did they specify a subspecies, but my assumption at this point is that they are ssp. pseudotruncatella. There are 5 subspecies in Cole's naming system (Lithops, Flowering Stones. D.T. & N.A. Cole) which I mostly accept.

Lithops optica 'Rubra' seedlings

A couple of shots of a couple of batches of our 'Rubra' seedlings. The top batch was seeded in February and the others in the previous year. It's great watching them grow up and get their own personalities.

Enjoy your plants.

Lithops optica ssp. rubra

This is our latest batch of Lithops optica ssp. rubra (or var. or cv. or 'rubra' depending on the author) and they're enjoying our late season hot spell. We've had a love for these little pebbles for a long time. 

But the warm spell is over. Our daytime temps have dropped into the 60s F and nighttime temps down into the 40s F. Quite a change.

Enjoy your plants!

Lithops karasmontana ssp. bella

Just beyond this one bunch of Echeverias is section full of Lithops. This one's one of my many favorites, Lithops karasmontana ssp. bella. Like Rika in Germany, the weather hasn't really been cooperating here and sometimes it's hard to get light bright enough to get a good photo.

However, it's clear out now and the nighttime temperature will be dropping to levels much below the normal for this time of year. And tomorrow night we'll probably get way, way below normal, with temperatures dropping down into the teens (F) (about -8 C). But we only got a light dusting of snow.

More about the Echeverias tomorrow.

Lithops fulviceps 'aurea'

I've posted photos of this plant before. They're easy to overlook at this time of year, what with all the succulent flowering going on! But they just continue doing their thing. They're almost through growing their new leaves as you can see. The old leaves will soon be a thing of the past.

Another Lithops flower

And another Lithops breaks into flower. This is Lithops schwantesii var. marthae and the flower opened up more later on but I didn't have the camera. If it's still out, I'll catch it tomorrow.