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Lithops salicola 'maculata' C86 MG1709 10/24/21
(1st sowing 1/14/20; 2nd sowing 1/28/21; no 3rd sowing)
This pot is another member of the set of five species of Lithops that I sowed over three seasons starting in fall/winter of 2019/2020. The biggest plants, about fingernail-sized, were sown in January of 2020. One plant is super ambitious and bloomed last October. It's typical of Lithops that they flower two to three years from seeding. One plant, to the left of center is demonstrating a consequence of being a leaf succulent. Rather than just showing a division across the plant body, you can see a swelling of obviously plant epidermis coming out of the now widely split crack. The swelling is a new leaf pair forming by cannibalizing the water and nutrients from the older plant tissue. In a few months, the older plant body will just be a dry husk of mostly skin tissue which will eventually separate completely from the new plant and be blown away by the wind. (Or picked away by the plant's slave.) It's a neat property of Lithops and some other leaf succulents. A new plant body is generated every year once the first body is formed. Practically what this means if you deface the little plant somehow, the injury will disappear as the new body forms. This is in contrast to stem succulents like cacti, where an injury to the plant may be visible for years, maybe forever. The much smaller plants you can see mainly at the top if the picture came from the second sowing a year later. There are no plants from a third sowing because I didn't need to do a third sowing. I have plenty of plants from the two sowings illustrated.
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