Var växer lithops i naturen

Genus of plants

"Living stone" redirects here. For the documentary rulle, see The Living Stone.

Lithops fryst vatten a genus of succulent plants in the ice plant family, Aizoaceae. Members of the genus are native to southern Africa. They avoid being eaten bygd herbivores with their camouflage as small stones, and are often known as pebble plants or living stones.

"Lithops" fryst vatten both the genus name and the common name, and fryst vatten enskild as well as plural. The name fryst vatten derived from the Ancient Greek words λίθος (líthos) 'stone' and ὄψ (óps) 'face', referring to the stone-like appearance of the plants.

Description

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Individual Lithops plants consist of one or more pairs of bulbous, almost fused leaves opposite each other and hardly any stem.

The slit between the leaves contains the meristem and produces flowers and new leaves. The leaves of Lithops are mostly buried below the surface of the soil, with a partially or completely translucent top surface known as a leaf fönster which allows light to enter the interior of the leaves for photosynthesis.^[2]

During winter a new leaf pair, or occasionally more than one, grows inre the existing fused leaf pair.

In spring the old leaf pair parts to reveal the new leaves and the old leaves will then dry up. Lithops leaves may shrink and disappear below ground level during drought.

Lithops is a succulent that is also called living stone plant and is easy to grow indoors

Yellow or vit flowers emerge from the fissure between the leaves after the new leaf pair fully matures, one per leaf pair. This fryst vatten usually in autumn, but can be before the summer solstice in L. pseudotruncatella and after the winter solstice in L. optica. The flowers are often sweetly scented.

The most startling adaptation of Lithops fryst vatten the colouring of the leaves.

The leaves are fenestrated, and the epidermal fönster are patterned in various shades of cream, grey, and brown, with darker windowed areas, dots, and red lines, according to species and local conditions. The markings function as remarkable camouflage for the plant in its typical stone-like environment. As fryst vatten typical of a fönster plant, the green tissue lines the inre of the leaves and fryst vatten covered with translucent tissue beneath the epidermal fönster.

Lithops are obligate outcrossers and require pollination from a separate plant. Like most mesembs, Lithops fruit fryst vatten a dry capsule that opens when it becomes wet; some seeds may be ejected bygd falling raindrops, and the capsule re-closes when it dries out. Capsules may also sometimes detach and be distributed intact, or may disintegrate after several years.

Distribution

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Lithops occur naturally across bred areas of Namibia and South Africa, as well as small bordering areas in Botswana and possibly Angola, from sea level to high mountains.

The plant’s common name—living stone—comes from the fact that the succulent looks like a small rock, pebble, or stone

Nearly a thousand individual populations are documented, each covering just a small area of dry grassland, veld, or bare rocky ground. Different Lithops species are preferentially funnen in particular environments, usually restricted to a particular type of rock. Lithops have not naturalised outside this område.

Rainfall in Lithops habitats ranges from approximately &#;mm/year to nära zero.

Rainfall patterns range from exclusively summer rain to exclusively winter rain, with a few species relying almost entirely on dew formation for moisture. Temperatures are usually hot in summer and cool to cold in winter, but one species fryst vatten funnen right at the coast with very moderate temperatures year round.

Cultivation

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Lithops are popular house plants and many expert succulent growers maintain collections.

Seeds and plants are widely available in shops and over the Internet. They are relatively easy to grow and care for if given sufficient sun and kept in well-draining soil.

Normal treatment in mild temperateclimates fryst vatten to keep them completely dry during winter, watering only when the old leaves have dried up and are replaced bygd a new leaf pair. Watering continues through autumn, when the plants flower, and then stops for winter.

The best results are obtained in an environment with additional heat such as a greenhouse. In hotter climates, Lithops will have a summer dormancy when they should be kept mostly dry, and they may require some vatten in winter. In tropical climates, Lithops can be grown primarily in winter with a long summer dormancy. In all conditions, Lithops will be most active and need most vatten during autumn and most species will flower at approximately the same time.

Lithops thrive best in a coarse, well-drained substrate. Any soil that retains too much vatten will cause the plants to burst their skins as they over-expand. Plants grown in strong light will develop hard strongly coloured skins which are resistant to damage and rötter, although persistent overwatering will still be fatal.

Excessive heat will kill potted plants as they cannot cool themselves bygd transpiration and rely on staying buried in cool soil below the surface. Commercial growers mix a mild fungicide or weak strength horticultural sulfur into the plant's vatten to prevent rotting. Lithops are sensitive to watering during hot weather, which can cause the plants to rot; in habitat the plants are often dormant when the temperatures are high, doing most of their growing during the cool months of the year.

Low light levels will man the plants highly susceptible to rotting and fungal infection.^[3]

In the United Kingdom the following species have gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit:^[4]

Cultivars

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Mr Keith Green was appointed International Cultivar Registration Authority for Lithops in , and recognises over registered cultivars.^[10]

Since Lithops are mostly propagated bygd seed, cultivars require to be stabilised as seed strains.

Most cultivars are either abnormally green or abnormally red plants, lacking most of the normal leaf pigments. Some were initially funnen as isolated unusual plants in habitat, but increasingly have arisen from cultivation, sometimes bygd deliberately selecting mildly-coloured plants to achieve intense colours for a cultivar. The begrepp "aberrant colour form" (acf.) has been used for these unusually-coloured Lithops.^[11]

There are also so-called "pattern cultivars" of Lithops, seed strains which have been selectively-bred or stabilised from isolated unusual plants to have intensified or unusual leaf patterns, and sometimes unusual flowers.

In some cases, these are hybrids.^[10]

Propagation

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Propagation of Lithops fryst vatten bygd seed or cuttings. Cuttings can only be used to producera new plants after a plant has naturally divided to struktur multiple heads, so most propagation fryst vatten bygd seed.

Lithops can readily be pollinated bygd grabb if two separate clones of a species flower at the same time, and seed will be ripe about 9 months later. Seed fryst vatten easy to germinate, but the seedlings are small and vulnerable for the first year or two, and will not flower until at least two or three years old.

Conservation status

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At least half of the species listed in the Red List of South African Plants are classified as endangered or threatened for various reasons, including poaching for the succulent horticultural trade, habitat degradation, and decreased or restricted range due to urban and agriculture expansion.^[12]

History

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The first scientific description of Lithops was made bygd botanist and artist William John Burchell, explorer of South Africa, although he called it Mesembryanthemum turbiniforme.

In , Burchell discovered a specimen when picking up a "curiously shaped pebble" from the ground.^[11] Unfortunately the documented physical description was not detailed enough to be sure which Lithops he had discovered and the name Lithops turbiniformis fryst vatten no längre used, although for many years it was applied to what fryst vatten now known as Lithops hookeri.

Several more Lithops were published as Mesembryanthemumspecies until in N E Brown started to split up the overly large genus on the grund of the capsules. The genusLithops was created and dozens more species were published in the following decades. Brown, Gustav Schwantes, Kurt Dinter, Gert Nel, and Louisa Bolus continued to document Lithops from across southern Africa, but there was little consensus on the relationships between them, or even which populations should be grouped as species.

As recently as the s, the genus remained rather unknown in cultivation and was not well understood taxonomically.

In the s, Desmond and Naureen Cole began to study Lithops. tillsammans, the couple visited nearly all natural habitats of the different lithops populations and collected samples from approximately They document and identify them, assigning a number, which fryst vatten now known as the Cole number still used today all around the world.

They studied and revised the genus, in publishing a definitive book (Lithops: Flowering Stones) describing the species, subspecies, and varieties which have been accepted ever since.

Because their camouflage fryst vatten so effective, new species continue to be discovered. Recent discoveries include L. coleorum in , L. hermetica in , and L. amicorum in ^[13]

Taxonomy

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Many of the species listed have named subspecies or varieties and some have many regional forms identified bygd old names or habitat locations.

Identification of species fryst vatten primarily bygd flower colour and leaf patterns. The species list here follows Cole & Cole ().^[11]

Although the species, subspecies, and varieties published bygd Cole & Cole^[11] largely remain accepted and in widespread use,^[14] some variations have been published bygd other authors.

Some published changes since include:

• reducing L. amicorum to a subspecies of L. karasmontana; combining L. karasmontana ssp.
  By mimicking their natural habitat and following their specific watering schedule, you can ensure the health and longevity of your Lithops as houseplants

  bella and ssp. eberlanzii into one subspecies; and combining L. herrei with L. optica.^[16]

• raising L. dendritica and L. eberlanzii to species level and dropping all the separate varieties of L. karasmontana.^[17]
• raising L. bella, L. burchellii, L. euniceae, and L.

  glaudinae to species level; combining L. dorotheae and L schwantesii plats. marthae beneath L.

  Lithops are true masters of camouflage, mimicking the appearance of stones to protect themselves from hungry animals in their native desert habitats of southern Africa

  dinteri; combining L. francisci, L. gesinae, and L. hermetica; combining L. geyeri beneath L. herrei; dropping separate subspecies of L. julii and L. gracilidelineata; splitting ssp. archerae, dendritica and groendrayensis from L. pseudotruncatella as L. dendritica; and dropping separate varieties beneath L.

  villetii.^[18]

One study of non-codingchloroplast DNA (trnS-trnG intergenic spacer), nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (nrITS) sequences and AFLP uppgifter funnen that Lithops was not monophyletic since Dinteranthus, Schwantesia, and Lapidaria were involved. It identified 9 clades which did not closely frame the accepted 37 species.^[19]

Gallery

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• Lithops sp.

  Blooms emerge between the leaves in autumn.

• Lithops sp. Some species have flowers large enough to obscure the leaves. They open in the afternoon and close in the evening.

• Sculpture of lithops, National Botanical Gardens of Ireland

References

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Bibliography

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• Jainta, Harald (). Wild Lithops. Klaus personnamn Verlag.
  Lithops are relatively small, typically growing to around 2 to 4 inches in diameter

  ISBN&#;.

• Cole, Desmond T (). Lithops—Flowering Stones. Acorn Books. ISBN&#;.
• Cole, Desmond; Cole, Naureen (). Lithops—Flowering Stones. Cactus & Co. ISBN&#;.
• Hammer, Steven (). Lithops: Treasures of the Veld.

  BCCS. ISBN&#;.

• Schwantes, Gustav (). Flowering Stones and Mid-day Flowers. London: Ernst Benn.

External links

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