This succulent plant is also known as living stones, with larger plants producing small rock-like protuberant leaves. The plant is widely available at nurseries and a live object of artistic interest. Instructions on how to grow a baby toes plant are easy enough for children and young people, who adore the fascinating little plant.
Grows in areas with sandy or calciferous soils.
The plants occur in very dry areas with winter-rainfall of only 100mm or less. In the wild, the they grows mostly buried by sand. The transparent fenestrate leaf tips are often above the sand and allow light into the leaves for photosynthesis.
Baby toes plants (Fenestraria rhopalophylla) are native to subtropical desert zones. They require bright sun and moderate water in well-drained soil with plenty of gritty matter. Mother Nature engineered them to be very tolerant of low nutrient soils with extreme weather conditions.
The perennial succulents form columns of leaves that are thick and rise up like small toes with flattened tops. The tops possess a translucent membrane over the top of the leaf. The vertical leaves may be mistaken for stems but are really modified foliage. Baby toes succulent may be mottled, grayish green to fully gray or even brown.
How to Grow a Baby Toes:
Starting Lithops from seed can be rewarding but you need a few key elements for a successful venture. First, the container should be shallow and well-draining.
Make up a growing medium with equal parts coir, potting soil, sand, fine gravel and perlite. Moisten the mixture in the pot lightly and strew the seeds evenly on the surface of the soil. Sprinkle a light dusting of sand over the seeds. They will push the sand out of their way as the seedlings emerge.
Cover the pot with clear plastic and place in a low light area until germination. Mist the plants after they emerge and remove the cover for half an hour daily to prevent fungal growth.
Commelina communis, commonly known as the Asiatic dayflower, is an herbaceous annual plant in the dayflower family. It gets its name because the blooms last for only one day. It is native throughout much of East Asia and northern parts of Southeast Asia.
It has also been introduced to parts of central and southeastern Europe and much of eastern North America, where it has spread to become a noxious weed. It is common in disturbed sites and in moist soil. The flowers emerge from summer through fall and are distinctive with two relatively large blue petals and one very reduced white petal.
The Asiatic dayflower plant serves as the type species for its large genus. Linnaeus picked the name Commelina in honour of the two Dutch botanists of the Commelijn family, using the two large showy petals of Commelina communis to symbolise them. Linnaeus described the species in the first edition of his landmark work, Species Plantarum, in 1753. Long before the plant was studied in Europe, however, it had been used for generations in traditional Chinese medicine. The flowers have also been used in Japan to produce a dye and a pigment that was used in many world-renowned Ukiyo-e woodcuts from the 18th and early 19th centuries. In the modern era the plant has found limited use as a model organism in the field of plant physiology due to its complex pigment chemistry and the ease of viewing its stomata.
The Asiatic dayflower is considered a weed both in areas where it was introduced and in certain parts of its native range. The flowers' interactions with pollinators have been well studied and have helped to support important hypotheses about pollination in the field of plant ecology. Recent research has also revealed that the Asiatic dayflower can bioaccumulate a number of metals, making it a candidate for revegetating and essentially cleaning spoiled copper mines. Several animals and fungi use the plant as a food source, with a few species feeding upon it exclusively.
Tuberaria guttata, the spotted rock-rose or annual rock-rose, is a annual plant of the Mediterranean region which also occurs very locally in Wales and Ireland. The flowers are very variable with the characteristic spot at the base of the petal very variable in size and intensity of colour.
Tuberaria guttata is an annual plant that grows to 2–30 centimetres (1–12 in) tall.[3] It has a rosette of basal leaves, each up to 3 cm (1.2 in) long and 1.5 cm (0.6 in) wide, but this rosette has normally withered by the time the plant is in flower. The stems bear 2–5 opposite pairs of leaves, and a few smaller leaves higher up, arranged alternately.
The inflorescence comprises around 12 flowers, 8–12 mm (0.31–0.47 in) in diameter. Each flower has five uneven sepals and five yellow petals usually with a dark red spot near the base. The flowers are cleistogamous, producing little pollen and no nectar, and attracting few insect visitors, and the petals fall off after only a few hours. The centre of the flower houses around 20 stamens and a single capitate stigma.
The fruit of T. guttata is a capsule containing many seeds, each 0.6 millimetres (0.024 in) long.
Tuberaria guttata is widely distributed in the Mediterranean region, and has a continuous distribution along the French Atlantic coast as far as the Channel Islands. Further north, its distribution is very patchy, being confined to a few localities on the west coasts of Ireland and Wales. The best-known of these populations is on the slopes of Holyhead Mountain in Anglesey. These British populations mark the northernmost limit of the species' distribution. Tuberaria guttata was chosen by Plantlife as the county flower of Anglesey in 2002.
In California, T. guttata has become naturalised in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada on the eastern edge of the Sacramento Valley.
In the Mediterranean region, T. guttata is common in arid habitats from woodlands to grasslands and roadsides. In the British Isles, it grows in bare patches of thin, dry soil overlying hard igneous rock in open areas within wind-cut heath near the sea.
Asimina triloba, the pawpaw, paw paw, paw-paw, or common pawpaw, is a species of Asimina (the pawpaw genus) in the same plant family (the Annonaceae) as the custard-apple, cherimoya, sweetsop, ylang-ylang and soursop. The pawpaw is native to the Eastern, Southern, and Midwestern United States and adjacent southernmost Ontario, Canada, from New York west to southeastern Nebraska, and south to northern Florida and eastern Texas. The pawpaw is a patch-forming (clonal) understory tree found in well-drained, deep, fertile bottom-land and hilly upland habitat, with large, simple leaves and large fruits. The paw paw is the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States.
Asimina triloba is a large shrub or small tree growing to a height of 35 feet (11 m) (rarely to 45 feet or 14 m) with a trunks 8-12 inches (20–30 cm) or more in diameter. The large leaves of pawpaw trees are clustered symmetrically at the ends of the branches, giving a distinctive imbricated appearance to the tree's foliage.
Ecology
Asimina triloba, the pawpaw, commonly grows in floodplains and shady, rich bottomlands, where it often forms a dense, clonally spreading undergrowth in the forest, often appearing as a patch or thicket of individual small slender trees. Pawpaws are not the first to colonize a disturbed site (arriving roughly four years after a clearcut), but may become dominant and slow the establishment of oaks and hickories. Although shade-tolerant, pawpaws do not persist in undisturbed old growth forest.
Pawpaws spread locally primarily by root suckers; sexual reproduction by seed does also occur, but at a fairly low rate.
Pawpaw flowers are insect-pollinated, but fruit production is sometimes limited as few if any pollinators are attracted to the flower's faint, or sometimes non-existent scent.
The flowers produce an odor similar to that of rotting meat to attract blowflies or carrion beetles for cross pollination. Other insects that are attracted to pawpaw flowers include scavenging fruit flies, carrion flies and beetles. Because of irregular fruit production, some believe pawpaw plants are self-incompatible, requiring cross-pollination between trees of different clones (patches).
Nelumbo lutea is a species of flowering plant in the monotypic family Nelumbonaceae. Common names include American lotus, yellow lotus, water-chinquapin, and volée. It is native to North America. The Linnaean binomial Nelumbo lutea (Willd.) is the currently recognized name for this species, which has been classified under the former names Nelumbium luteum and Nelumbo pentapetala, among others.
American Lotus was a main food source for Native Americans and it is basically found east and south of the Rockies plus parts of California. While the root, shoots, flowers and young seeds are edible, it was the root the Indians counted on to get them through the winter.
The popularity of the N. lutea no doubt has also led to its many common names: American Lotus, Yellow Water Lotus, Yellow Lotus, Alligator Buttons, Duck Acorns, Water Chinquapin, Yonkapin, Yockernut and Pondnut. Many of those names refers to the plant’s round, dark brown, half-inch seeds. Even its name is about the seed. Nelumbo is Ceylonese and means “sacred bean.” Lutea is Dead Latin for yellow. The species can produce more than 8,000 long-stem yellow flowers per acre and its empty seed pods are often found in flora arrangements. The stamens of the flower can be dried and used to make a fragrant tea and entire dried flowers are used in cooking.
N. lutea like to grow in shallow ponds and along the edges of slow streams with clean water. It propagates from seed and root. The root is banana shaped and thick, sometimes reaching close to a foot long. When cut it resembles a wagon wheel in appearance. Unlike many “water lilies” the N. lutea leaves are round and not split, with the stem attaching to the middle of the leaf. Some leaves are on the water and some above it.
The lotus is a favorite water plant among fishermen because unlike other water lilies the lotus does not grab fishing line in a clef. The unopened leaves are edible like spinach and older leaves can be used to wrap food. Stems taste somewhat like beets and are usually peeled before cooking.
Lotus root is sweet and can be eaten as raw, sliced stir fried, or stuffed and is similar to sweet potato. Young lotus roots are good for salads while the starchy roots are good for making soups. The root discolors quickly when cut, so treat like an apple or pear as soon as it is peeled and cut up drop it into water with lemon juice or citric acid. It is often left to soak in water to reduce any bitterness.
Leucanthemum vulgare, the ox-eye daisy or oxeye daisy, is a widespread flowering plant native to Europe and the temperate regions of Asia and an introduced plant to North America, Australia and New Zealand. It is one of a number of family Asteraceae plants to be called a "daisy", and has the additional vernacular names common daisy, dog daisy and moon daisy.
L. vulgare is a typical grassland perennial wildflower, growing in a variety of plant communities including meadows and fields, under scrub and open-canopy forests, and in disturbed areas.
Leucanthemum vulgare is a perennial herb one to three feet high by 1 foot (0.30 m) wide. The stem is mostly unbranched and sprouts laterally from a creeping rhizomatous rootstock.
The leaves are dark green on both sides. The basal and middle leaves are petiolate, obovate to spoon-shaped, and serrate to dentate. The upper leaves are shorter, sessile, and borne along the stem.
L. vulgare blooms from late spring to autumn. The small flower head, not larger than 5 centimetres (2.0 in), consists of about 20 white ray florets that surround a yellow disc, growing on the end of 1 to 3 ft (30 to 91 cm) tall stems. The plant produces an abundant number of flat seeds, without pappus, that remain viable in the soil for 2 to 3 years. It also spreads vegetatively by rhizomes.
Cultivation
Leucanthemum vulgare is widely cultivated and available as a perennial flowering ornamental plant for gardens and designed meadow landscapes. It thrives in a wide range of conditions and can grow in sun to partial shade, and prefers damp soils. There are cultivars, such as 'May Queen' which begins blooming in early spring.
Suitable for: light (sandy), medium (loamy) and heavy (clay) soils and prefers well-drained soil. Suitable pH: neutral and basic (alkaline) soils. It cannot grow in the shade. It prefers moist soil. The plant can tolerate strong winds but not maritime exposure.
Cotyledon orbiculata, commonly known as pig's ear or round-leafed navel-wort, is a South African succulent plant belonging to the Cotyledon genus.
C. orbiculata is an extremely variable species that grows to approximately 1.3 m (4.3 ft) in height. It has gray-green leaves that can be up to 13 by 7 cm (5.1 by 2.8 in) with a white powdery substance on them that helps reflect sunlight and conserve water.
The shape of the leaves was thought to have a resemblance to a pig's ear, thus the common name.
This succulent plant has thick leaves which may vary from green to grey, often with a red line around the margin. Cotyledon orbiculata has five varieties, based on differences in leaf and flower shape. The variability of leaf size, shape and colour is also influenced by the immediate environment. Selected forms in cultivation have been given names such as 'Elk Horns' or 'Silver Waves'.
The bell-shaped flowers are small, usually less than 3 cm (1.2 in) in length, and droop from the top of a 60 cm (24 in) tall stalk. The flowers are usually orange-red but yellow varieties also exist.
The plant can reproduce by a leaf cutting, which will take root and spawn a new plant when placed on the humid ground, but it shouldn't be too wet, as it may rot.
Native to South Africa, it is popular in gardens in many countries. In the wild, it grows naturally in rocky outcrops in grassy shrubland and the Karoo region. In New Zealand, it is considered an invasive plant and is listed on the National Pest Plant Accord.
Rhodiola rosea (commonly golden root, rose root, roseroot, western roseroot, Aaron's rod, Arctic root, king's crown, lignum rhodium, orpin rose) is a perennial flowering plant in the family Crassulaceae. It grows in cold regions of the world, including much of the Arctic, the mountains of Central Asia, scattered in eastern North America from Baffin Island to the mountains of North Carolina, and mountainous parts of Europe, such as the Alps, Pyrenees, and Carpathian Mountains, Scandinavia, Iceland, Great Britain and Ireland.
It grows on sea cliffs and on mountains at altitudes up to 2280 meters. Several shoots grow from the same thick root. Shoots may reach 5 to 35 cm in height. R. rosea is dioecious – having separate female and male plants.
Rhodiola rosea is from 5 to 40 centimetres (2.0 to 15.7 in) tall, fleshy, and has several stems growing from a short, scaly rootstock. Flowers have 4 sepals and 4 petals, yellow to greenish yellow in color sometines tipped with red, about 1 to 3.5 millimetres (0.039 to 0.138 in) long, and blooming in summer.
Bryophyllum delagoense is a succulent plant native to Madagascar. In common with some other members of its genus, B. delagoense is notable for vegetatively growing small plantlets on the distal ends of its phylloclades, leading to its common names of mother of thousands, mother of millions, and devil's backbone. It's also commonly known as the Chandelier plant due to it's chandelier-like flowers.
This species' capability for vegetative reproduction, its drought tolerance, and its popularity as a garden plant, relate to this species' becoming an invasive weed in places such as eastern Australia and many Pacific islands. In the Neotropics hummingbirds sometimes pollinate this non-native plant.
While being invasive, it can be used as an excellent ground cover in expose, dry grounds, giving color in winter with their attractive orange blooms. The "chandelier" of flowers can bloom for 2 weeks, until it runs out of flower buds.
It's a very useful plant to grow in next to grey concrete backgrounds, as it's stunning flowers are very useful in making sharp contrasts.
Though being drought tolerant, they do best if planted in half-day sunlight, light watering once every 2 days. If grown in dry, full-sun conditions, the plant with develop grey leaves, and if grown in wetter, less exposed conditions, it'll develop larger green leaves.
So generally, this plant can be watered daily, or not watered at all depending on the weather, unlike most water-fuzzy succulent plants. They can tolerate moist soil, and even grow well so as long as sunlight is provided.
Each individual flower lasts for only 5 days.
It is an ideal plant for the rockery, but also grows well as a pot plant. They thrive in where no other plant can survive, in places such as rock cliffs, abandoned concrete buildings, and dry pebble ground.
It is only capable of colonizing ground that isn't too shady or wet, so it's limitation to dry barren ground limits it's status as a invasive species.
It only becomes invasive under the right conditions. Even then, their "plantlings" are easy to remove, as their roots aren't deep. These plants are remarkably adaptable, capable of growing in cracks among concrete or rocks, or they can grow in ordinary garden soil, so as long their's adequate sunlight for them.
Byrophyllum delagoense is unwelcome because it displaces native plants and contains bufadienolide cardiac glycosides which can cause cardiac poisoning, particularly in grazing animals. During 1997, 125 head of cattle died after eating this species on a travelling stock reserve near Moree, NSW.
Because of the toxicity of this species and its hybrids, and especially of the flowers, it has been declared a noxious weed in New South Wales and Queensland.
The Wild Peony (Paeonia mascula) also known as the Male or Balkan Peony and sometimes referred to by the synonym Paeonia corallina is a species of peony. A herbaceous perennial plant 0.5–1.5 metres tall, the Wild Peony has leaves which are divided into three segments and large red flowers in late spring and early summer. Native to China, Italy, Morocco, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon and Israel this wild peony has become naturalised on two small islands in the UK.
Wild peonies are at risk in their natural environment due to the demand from private collectors and there is a significant trade in wild Peonia mascula from Turkey.
Ideal conditions are light (sandy) soils although and most peonies can grow in heavy clay soil. The Wild Peony prefers acid and neutral soils, can grow in semi-shade and tolerates drought.
The Wild Peony was introduced to the island of Steep Holm in the Bristol Channel, possibly by monks. 37 plants were taken to nearby Flat Holm island by Frank Harris, the farmer at the time, in the 1930s, many of which died during the World War II occupation and fortification of the island. One remaining plant was reintroduced by the Flat Holm Warden in 1982 and is protected by fencing near the path to the lighthouse. A few plants grown from seed also survive in the farmhouse garden.
Paeonia mascula flowers for just one week of the year normally in May or June and the seedpods (at one stage referred to as jester's hats develop during the summer before bursting open to scatter seeds in August or September.The flowers are hermaphrodite and pollinated by Insects. The plant is self-fertile.
The islands are the only known place in the UK where the Wild Peony has naturalised. The likely reason for this is that the islands provide a habitat which is similar to the Mediterranean islands where the plants originate from and the relative isolation allows them some protection.
Paeonia californica (California peony or wild peony) is one of two species of Peony native to North America. It is endemic to southwest California, United States, where it grows on dry hillsides in the coastal sage scrub and chaparral communities of the coastal mountains of Southern and Central California, often as an understory plant.
It is sometimes considered a subspecies of the other Paeonia species native to North America, Paeonia brownii.
The California peony is a summer-deciduous broad-leafed perennial herb or sub-shrub less than 0.5 m high by 1 m wide. Its foliage is highly lobed, roughly 10 cm. in length. The top of the leaves are dark green, with paler undersides. It flowers in from January to March, bearing elliptic (cup-shaped) drooping flowers. Petals are dark maroon in color.
The California peony has entered limited cultivation in native plant landscaping and xeriscaping. It is drought-tolerant and is moisture sensitive in the summer, when its swollen root will rot if watered. It prefers partial sun and tolerates a variety of soil types. Deer seem to avoid eating this plant.
Paeonia suffruticosa, the moutan or tree peony, is a species of peony native to China. Paeonia suffruticosa is the plant’s botanical name. More commonly, the plant is referred as the tree peony. It is known as mudan (牡丹) in Chinese and is an important symbol in Chinese culture. It was first described and validly published by Henry Charles Andrews in 1804.
The flower component is its most attracting feature of the plant. Paeonia suffruticosa’s flower is very large in comparison with most other flower species. The size of the flower usually ranges from 6-12 inches cross. It is the flower component that is used to classify the plant’s cultivar, using characteristics such as the flower form and color. The epidermis of its roots is used in traditional Chinese medicine, called "mudanpi" (牡丹皮).
Paeonia suffruticosa is a cultivated plant. Even until today, there are still uncertainties regarding which wild plants the flower is derived from. The flower originates from China and its surrounding areas, possessing significant cultural meaning throughout Chinese history. Currently there are about 600 Chinese tree peony cultivars. Since its introduction abroad, a few unique cultivar groups have been bred in France, Britain, the United States, and some other countries. This species is less common in U.S, but it can generally be found in plant nurseries.
Paeonia suffruticosa, also known as the tree peony, originates from China. Sometimes, people refer to these tree peonies as “Chinese tree peonies.”
Paeonia suffruticosa belongs to the peony family. The most distinctive feature is that Paeonia suffruticosa is a bush or a tree, whereas most peonies are herbaceous. Despite their classification as trees, it is the flowers that attract people's attention. Peonies are generally slow to grow and have flowers that only last briefly and are fragile under weather conditions such as wind, rain or hot temperatures.
In comparison, Paeonia suffruticosa, as a tree, survives longer than the rest of the peonies. The woody stems of tree peonies allow the plant to survive in winter. In general, the plant is long-lived, and the flowers bloom longer in the early spring.
Make up a growing medium with equal parts coir, potting soil, sand, fine gravel and perlite. Moisten the mixture in the pot lightly and strew the seeds evenly on the surface of the soil. Sprinkle a light dusting of sand over the seeds. They will push the sand out of their way as the seedlings emerge.
