On The Road – Mike S. (now with a Democratic Congressperson!) – Namaqualand, South Africa Part 2. Succulents big and small

The commonest tree aloe in the area is the Kokerboom or Aloidendron dichotomum. It’s a common sight in drier parts of the Northern Cape region of South Africa, but in gardens they are much fuller than the most of the wild ones like this. The specific epithet dichotomum refers to the dichotomous or “Y” type branching of this species.

One of the highlights of the trip was me getting up close and personal with the rarest of the tree aloes, Aloidendron pillansii. There are only about 2,000 mature specimens in the world and they all live in the desert hills on either side of the Orange River in South Africa and Namibia. Our guide estimated that this one, the biggest we saw, is around 1000 years old. I don’t know if that’s true, but It is very believable to me.

We first headed north from Springbok towards Vioolsdrift.  I love the name of the town of Vioolsdrift which is on the Orange River. A long-ago ferryman who carried people back and forth across the Orange River to Namibia played the violin as he plied his way over the water.

We were headed to see what turned out to be my favorite plant species ofthe trip, Pachypodium namaquanum, called “Halfmens” in Afrikaans. or “Elephant’s Trunk” in English. They look like they might have inspired Dr. Seuss,  they are amazing to see. You can tell direction from them as the little crown of leaves at the top of their spiny trunk always tilts north toward the sun. It took me a while to get used to the sun being north of us! The tallest one we saw was about 10 feet tall.

Pachypodiums are in the family Apocynaceae, the dogbane/milkweed family, just like the common milkweed Asclepias syriacus, that is native to my front yard here in Pennsylvania.

This species is actually not difficult to grow and is widely grown by succulent fanatics like me, but my baby , seedling one I bought a couple of years ago, is only about 5 inches tall.

This area to the northwest of Springbok was my first real change to sample the vast diversity of the succulent flora of South Africa Many cool succulents live on Kopjes, the Afrikaans name for little hills in a generally flat area like these and the best little succulent plants like to grow in the crevices and gravelly slopes especially the south facing slopes with white quartzite rocks. Both factors help to keep things just slightly cooler for tiny plants in the summer’s heat.

My top priority on this whole trip was to see and photograph some of the succulents called “Living Stones”, i.e. Lithops, Conophytums  and related genera in the Aizoaceae family (formerly considered to be the Mesembryanthemaceae, or ice-plant family and so nicknamed “Mesembs” among succulent lovers). These are my latest horticultural obsession (especially Lithops) and I grow a lot, several hundred species in my small, 8 x 12′, greenhouse where I have too many pots of them, mainly seedlings less than 4 years old.

So here is my first wild Lithops species of the four I saw, Lithops marmorata. Each plant consists of one or more pairs of leaves and each pair of leaves is fused together into a single unit referred to as a “plant body” and when they bloom a single flower bud forms at the split between the two leaves. The yellow or white flowers, depending on the species, may be an inch or two across and usually hide the plant from view like a floral parasol! The leaves of Lithops typically have a camouflaging pattern on the top with translucent areas with opaque islands or lines. These translucent windows allow light in the to plant as they pull themselves into the ground in the driest season to conserve moisture and leave just the tip of their leaves visible. The main herbivores that do find and eat them are grasshoppers and crickets, with the occasional mouse taking a nibble or two.

Here is another “mesemb” that has windows at the tip of its leaves to let in sunlight for photosynthesis. It is Fenestraria rhopalophylla, called “Baby Toes” growing in sand near the Atlantic coast near Orangemund, South Africa. This is another plant I grow in in my greenhouse, but the almost completely buried growth habit of this little cutie is almost impossible to keep in cultivation.

As we drove down the coast from Orangemund to Port Nolloth, the electric poles where the only perches and nest spots for raptors and corvids. We saw a half-dozen or so of this gorgeous species, the Southern Pale Chanting Goshawk. This one was resting on one leg like a shorebird which U have never noticed a raptor doing before, I think maybe the long legs make it so obvious and I might not pay attention in a shorter legged bird.

Conophytum plants were another thing I really wanted to see. These are some of the larger ones we saw and these little clumping plants are only 3 or 5 inches across. There and many, many species in this genus and there are difficult to tell apart when they are not in bloom or if they don’t have seed capsules. I’ll have to go back in the autumn to see them in bloom.  This is an unidentified, by me, species.

Many species of Conophytum have restricted ranges and a few have tiny ranges that are limited to one hill or kopje. These plants have become very popular to grow, especially now in China and so plant poaching is a huge problem. At least 4 four species, probably more, are now extinct in the wild due to illegal digging for export to Aisia, Europe and sadly probably still some to the USA. What’s sad is that they are very easy to grow from seed, although it does take some years to get a big plant. Seed is easy to get here in the US, I buy mine from Mesa Gardens in New Mexico.

Adromischus alstonii is a species we saw in many places, but it varies greatly in how spotted the succulent leaves are and in how round or elongated they are. It is in the Crassulaceae family which also contains its familiar household cousin the Jade Plant, Crassula ovata.

This is my favorite picture of this species, although I think I took a picture of every one I saw!

Not the best picture, but I had to include this Jackal Buzzard, Buteo rufofuscus, for you all. This is one of the commonest hawks I saw, but none of them ever cooperated for a great picture like the Chanting Goshawks did. This is a very close relative of our North American Red-tailed Hawk, Buteo jamaicensis.