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The body is a lovely lime green colour with many
shiny dark green dots covering the golden yellow top.
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Description:
L. fulviceps
is generally smaller than most Lithops but its shape follows the
same pattern of a
cordate (heart-shaped),
bifurcate body of two
leaves, cleft nearly to the
base and showing a pattern of channels, islands and
windows on the top face.
The patterns of colours and dots of this cultivar on the face is
regular. The numerous dots (small windows) are bright green on a golden
top, the plants body is a beautiful lime green colour
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Cultivation: L. terricolor is a summer growing species with dry rest
period over winter. Easy to grow it tolerates a degree more excess water
than some particular hydrophobic species, even so it must have a very
open mineral, fast draining mix with little compost and a high degree of
grit, coarse sand, small lava gravel or pebbles. Give them the maximum
amount of light you are able to give them, but care should be taken
about exposing them to the full blast of the sun rays in summer. Such
tiny plants can easily get scorched or broiled and their appearance
spoiled (this may not matter in the wild, where the Lithops have
probably shrunk into the ground and becomes covered with sands).
The basic cultivation routine is: Stop watering after flowering. Start
watering after the old leaves completely dry. (Usually late March or
Early April) Water freely during the growing season, soak the compost
fully but allow it to dry out between waterings, no water when
cold. Some growers fertilize frequently, some hardly
ever. Keep them dry during the winter. Nearly all problems occur as a
result of overwatering and poor ventilation especially when weather
conditions are dull and cool or very humid. If too much water is
supplied the plants will grow out of character, bloat, split and rot.
Keep them in small pots as solitary clumps or as colonies in large,
shallow terracotta seed pans.
Note: After flowering in the
autumn and extending through
winter
season the plant doesn’t need
watering, but they will still be
growing, the new
bodies will be increasing in size extracting
water from the outer
succulent leaves, allowing them to
shrivel away. In fact the plant in this time extracts
water and
nutrient stored in the outer
succulent leaves, allowing them to
dehydrate relocating the water to the rest of the plant and to
the new leaves that form during this period until the old leaves are
reduced to nothing more than "thin papery shells".
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Family: Mesebrianthemaceae (Aizoaceae)
Scientific name:
Lithops terricolor
cv. SPECLED GOLD
Origin:
Garden origin (Nursery
produced cultivar)
Synonyms:
- Lithops localis "SPECLED GOLD"
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Remarks: Lithops are partly
subterranean, with only the clear 'window'
in each leaf tip exposed above soil. A type of optical system exists
whereby a layer of apical tissue rich in calcium oxalate crystals acts
as a filter to intense sunlight before it reaches the thin
chlorophyllous layer below. They are also called
mimicry plants as they show a striking similarity to their
background rocks and are difficult to detect when not in flower. These
are the commonly known as pebble plants or living stones; each species
is associated with one particular type of rock formation and occurs
nowhere else. Its soil-embedded, subterranean growth form also reduces
the need for chemical defences against herbivores.
Photo of conspecific taxa, varieties, forms and cultivars of
Lithops terricolor:
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Cultivation
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