Agave potatorum
Sadly this means the Mother plant will perish after flowering but it has produced numerous pups during it’s lifetime.
I had to protect this plant from afternoon direct sun in the Karoo, but otherwise this small, compact Agave is hassle-free to grow.
Agave potatorum is used to make a mexican wine called pulque.
Sceletium tortuosum is a rare succulent plant that has medicinal properties that relieves anxiety and lifts depression in those with a serotonin imbalance.
It is used by the first people of South Africa, the Khoikhoi and the San during hunting expeditions as it reduces appetite and increases stamina.
It can be chewed, drank as tea or snuffed with different effects according to the method taken.
It is prepared traditionally by fermenting and then drying the herb.
It occurs in the karroo regions of the western cape, typically growing prostrate under the shade of other bushes and trees.
Indigenous to South Africa this species has been found to extract the most carbon from the air for any tree it’s size. It is found on rocky slopes in arid conditions and flowers in extreme drought conditions.
It is a popular bonsai subject because of it’s caudiciform (tree trunk-like) appearance. Pictured is a variegated type.
I want it to lean over almost horizontally so I used crutch-shaped sticks to prop it up.
Low growing shrubby succulent with conspicuously hairy leaves and small yellow flowers.
The name Delosperma is derived from the greek for visible seed, in allusion to the fact that the capsules have no covering membranes so the seeds are exposed when the capsules are open.
The plant is from the mesemb family and is native to Southern Africa.
You know spring has sprung when the Lampranthus are flowering..
Posted in FEATURED PLANTS
Tagged flowers, Indigenous plants, Plants, Spring, Succulents
Senecio or Kleinia articularis is a succulent with blue-gray jointed stems resembling a string of sausages hence it’s name hotdog plant or ‘worsies’.
It has ivy shaped leaves that are seen seasonally, otherwise the stems are bare.
They spread and ramble under larger shrubs in the spekboomveld and gwarrieveld of the western cape and eastern cape of South Africa.
Posted in FEATURED PLANTS
Tagged Africa, Horticulture, Indigenous plants, Plants, Succulents, water-wise
Tongue-leafed mesemb, Glottiphyllum longum with seed pods or fruit capsules. this species flowers in autumn in the western cape, little karoo region.
The highly succulent leaves are oblong and slightly flattened. Stems are not normally visible and the plant exhibits clump-forming growth as opposed to trailing.
Very hardy.
Posted in FEATURED PLANTS
Tagged Africa, flowers, Indigenous plants, Medicinal plants, Plants, Succulents
Aloe tappers near Calitzdorp in the Little Karoo arrange the cut aloe leaves in a ring around a depression in the ground lined with plastic. Aloin sap flows from the aloe leaves and is collected in the plastic. It is then boiled and reduced to a resinous form taken as a laxative and for arthritis.
Sprawling succulent shrublet with a rosette of warty club shaped branches arising from a short thick stem (caudex). Endemic near Cape town, South Africa found in deep sand and on rocky outcrops.
“Euphorbias are characterized by their milky latex. Stipules are usually present, often modified into prickles and spines.
Many species produce peduncles (inflorescent stalks) which persist after the cyathia (cup-shaped structures) and capsules have withered.
In some species these persistent peduncles become sharpened at the tip and become true spines.
The individual flowers, set within a cyathium, which is the basic unit of the inflorescence of euphorbia, are surrounded by a number of bracts which form a unique floral envelope or involucre.
The flowers are unisexual with the male flower reduced to a single stamen on it’s own pedicel.
Curiously there is never more than one female flower in a cyathium, whereas the male flowers are always numerous.
Capsules usually consist of three cells. the cells seperate at maturity from a persistent axis, often freeing the seed with great force.”
Towerkop Nursery 