42 replies to this topic

[Andreas Eils]

Buonasera dear cacti and succulents lovers,

it´s been awhile since a new topic has been added to this sub forum. I hope here are a few enthusiasts of Lithops and other Mesembryanthemaceae.

I have to admit that I have rather switched over from carnivores to Lithops and Co. My CP collection is still shrinking while my Lithops collection is constantly expanding. I favour them as much as I did with CPs. But I´m actually still a Lithops beginner. I bet some more disappointments are awaiting me with the cultivation of Lithops!

Lithops renew every winter to spring. Which means the old "leaves" are dying and shrinking while new ones develop in the hollow of the old lobes. The cleft between the old lobes widens and the new lobes arise. When this process is finished only a dry shell of the old lobes remain. The pattern of the surface of the new lobes often varies significantly from the old. Though the specific look of a certain species and colony remains the same.

Here´s an example how new leaves arise in the cleft between the two old lobes.



Lithops julii ssp. fulleri C 272 *C = location number (field number) of wild populations visited by Desmond T. Cole



And now some comparisons between old and new lobes:


Lithops fulviceps var. lactinea C 222 - 2010


L. fulviceps var. lactinea C 222 - 2011 (same plant, but new soil!)



Lithops coleorum C 396 - 2010


Lithops coleorum C 396 - 2011 (same plant, it´s now approx. 12 mm in diametre; I have switched from pumice/lavalite to a mineral mix containing loam, schale, perlite and much less pumice as a soil)



L. dorotheae C 300 - 2010


L. dorotheae C 300 - 2011



L. dorotheae C 300 - 2010 - another plant


L. dorotheae C 300 - 2011


And two more L. dorotheae C 300 I have new:





These pictures of four L. dorotheae C 300 illustrate how different the pattern of the surface of the lobes among a single species and single location can be but you always recognise it´s L. dorotheae. Well, in fact it´s not much different to e. g. pitchers of tropical pitcher plants...






Both are L. karasmontana ssp. bella C 108, but not the same plant. The lower pic is from 2010.




L. karasmontana ssp. eberlanzii C 209 (syn. erniana ) - a one year old seedling




L. gesinae var. annae C 78 - the finished new lobes of last year (it´s not finished with the new ones this year)


Now for something different (not 'completely different' )!




Faucaria tigrina - one month old seedlings






Titanopsis calcarea


Thanks for viewing!

Andreas

[dede718]

Hello ;)
i enjoy to see person who like these plants like me    i start with lithops too and in France there are no many people who grow up lithops

Kind Regards Frédéric

[mattybadboy44]

Hi great pics, what is the best media to use for these? I recently bought a few from a garden centre on an impulse buy, I love anything different or strange, but I don't know alot about them.

[Andreas Eils]

Hello guys,

thanks a lot for your nice comments.

In UK Lithops are often grown in a medium which contains lime-free gravel and coarse granite rock pieces. If I´m not wrong the soil also contains some peat. Perhaps you´ll find the answer here: http://www.bcss.org....40395a082bf25e2 "Iann" uses to have very good advices. I was told pumice is not available in UK. In Germany many Lithops grower grow them in pure pumice or a mixture of pumice and lava rock pieces. I terribly failed with pumice!

I now use Kakteen Haages mineral soil mix which works a lot better. I have purchased some Lithops from Haage which they´ve sent potted and I noticed they don´t cause me trouble in their soil. So I use theirs now as well and I´m happy with it.

One thing with Lithops is very important: Don´t water it as long as you can remember the last time you watered! Seriously: I grow them on a window sill below my roof windows (South-East & South-West). I only water them three or four times in a year. When I do I sprinkle them profusely so water runs out of the drainage holes. Watering is best done in the evening and when temperatures are not too high (above 25°C). It is important the soil can dry out within only a few days. Else roots start to rot.

A very experienced grower of Lithops among  us here at CPUK is Will9. He has decades of experience! :-)

Good luck!

Andreas

PS: Oh and before I forget it: Lithops MUST grow at a well ventilated place!

Edited by Andreas Eils, 24 April 2011 - 23:05 PM.

[Amar]

Am glad to see you've found something you again are passionate about.

[gardenofeden]

very nice. Love the L.dorotheae and the Titanopsis especially.

The other key tip for Lithops is not to water in winter, stop watering about October and only start watering once the old leaves have shrivelled and the new leaves are fully exposed.

[Phil Green]

Very nice.

I've never grown them, but have always loved them.
That Titanopsis calcarea looks very strange!

[Carni]

Hey Andreas, nice to see other lithops lovers !

I really enjoy to see the last pic of dorotheae that looks like a L. dinteri, they will probably make only one species in the future.In the opposite do you know 'Zorro' ? We can create all that we want with lithops  

I thought lactinea was always white and blue... hard to ID if you don't know the name.

For mine, I use lot of lava, quartz and some 'compost'. I don't grow them in it for a long time but they are wearing their new skins... I think it's good, I'll check the roots in one year to see if it works good for them.


Nice plants

Carni

[Andreas Eils]

Hi,

glad, you like my new treasures!

Dinteri and Dorotheae = one species?


This is my L. dinteri ssp. fredericii C 180 for example. Well, could be seen as a poorly marked version of L. dorotheae.

I was also very amazed about the colour of the new skin of L. fulviceps var. lactinea. It may be because of the strong sun the last weeks. All the new lobes of my Lithops show an intense colouration and it´s already at the border to a possible sun burn. I have fixed a shade cloth last Saturday to protect my "stones" from possible sun burn. I expect the colour of my L. fulviceps var. lactinea will change during the next weeks or months. The new lobes of my Dorotheae are much yellower than last year. The new skin of the Dorotheae in question (looks like Dinteri) is a surprising extreme of the rudimentary characteristics of the last lobes. But these are surprises I really like. It makes the "flowering stones" even more interesting.

"Zorro" - do you mean a plant grower with this nickname? I think I´ve had already talked to him. He´s from France, isn´t he? What do you mean with "we can create all that we want with Lithops"? I have the second edition of Desmond T. Coles "Flowering Stones" and for my taste his taxonomic estimation is the one I can follow most. There have been point of views to only classify two species of Lithops: Yellow flowering and white flowering. Yellow flowers with white centres are then hybrids between yellow flowering and white flowering species? But of course I´m no expert with Lithops. I think I have to cope with what taxonomists regard.

Here´s a photo of the T. calcarea from above:


In the new pictures the leaves are also highly coloured from intense sun.

Another very nice Titanopsis is hugo-schlechteri:


Unfortunately I´ve lost all my Hugo-schlechteris in winter! Pumice retains moisture for too long if you grow them indoors! They´ve all rot in winter!

Here´s the lovely flower of T. hugo-schlechteri:


I now raise them from seed but I intend to also order new plants from a certain source.


Kind regards

Andreas

[Daniel O.]

Hi Andreas ,

wow, really fantastic looking plants.
They seem to like you.

Best regards,

Dani

[Carni]

Hi, the Lithops have sometimes very nice and often new colours that are not usual in the species when they make their new skins. You lactinea will probabbl go white in the next weeks or months, loosing some colour.



'Zorro' is a cv. of dorotheae from S.H. I don't think it is good stabilized? yet. But There are some pics in his last book. Here is the most characteristic picture I've found. It a dorotheae selected to have less windows as possible and have only red marks like the Zorro used to do to people lol.

""What do you mean with "we can create all that we want with Lithops"?"" I mean we can easily (I think...) select them, cross them like Rosas and Dionaea   I will not be sure about anything I've read till I'll try myself of course...

I think Cole was mostly right with his classification, Lithops are hard to classifie, and I disagree like you with the flowers colour theories. I'm looking for the last edition of this book of Cole (flowering stones 2005), could you tell me where you get it ? And the price if possible. I've only found some used books for more than 60€... don't know if it's the official price  


Hope you understood all I said I try to do my best but when you're not practicing anymore you loose some words and grammar... Cheers  

[will9]

""What do you mean with "we can create all that we want with Lithops"?"" I mean we can easily (I think...) select them, cross them like Rosas and Dionaea  I will not be sure about anything I've read till I'll try myself of course...

That go not happend i am affraid,you can select some nice forms ,but next time you sowing this you have not all like this select plants.
It s also very difficult to cross different species of lithops togheter,it s allmost impossible.You can cross lithops better whit other genus of succulents then whit other lithops species.
The are not many crossings know from lithops,Japanese make some ,or meaby this are only select forms from one specie?No one knows ,but the most CV are only select on a different color from wild seeds.
You can cross the different SSP. of lithops so long she are from the same species ,but if this give beautyfull plants is another question!

[Carni]

+1, Dinterops and Argyrops are nice plants. There are also some conophytum crossings. But like in Dionaea cv.'s crossings I always hope  there's a chance to get new nice plants

Maybe when I'll be able to try inter species crossings in autumn () I'll smile a bit less than now, I think I'll be disappointed with lithops cause I've never been right now. There are always ways that are not yet known, I'm here to find them  

[Andreas Eils]

Hi Carni,

I´ve bought the book "Flowering Stones" (2nd edition, 2005) at Kakteen Haage for 59,90 EUR.

"Zorro" - a cultivar of a Dorotheae-Lithops?      I must admit I don´t have much contact to other Lithops growers and aren´t up to date with the news about new cultivars and perhaps also newly discovered species or locations. Nonetheless, the "Zorro" looks good with its long, blood-red streaks. Never expected a Lithops could be called "Zorro". But Steven Hammer seems to have a good portion of both fantasy and humour.

*cough* I´ve also never heard of Dinterops and Argyrops before. Seems it was primarily an idea of Russians to create such crossings as there are many Russian sites showing these crosses. X Dinterops  "Stones Throw" doesn´t look bad.

Wait! Argyrops is a fish! -> Argyrops fish

I believe I´ve read the Coles tried to cross several Lithops species and mostly failed. But a lot of people agree that Lithops steineckeana is not a pure Lithops! Some of the crosses produced seed but then none of these germinated.

Too bad all my first Lithops seedlings died after transplanting! I´ve had a yellowish L. otzeniana C 128 seedling! I´ve often read (at BCSS forum) - and experience the same with some of my seedlings - among every (or almost every) batch of seedlings there is at least one special coloured. I wish I´d get a L. gracilidelineata ssp. brandbergensis "café au lait". That is a beautifully coloured Gracilidelineata.
I am a beginner with Lithops and maybe my worst mistake is I want too much in too short time! I kinda walk through an accelerated course of growing experience with lots of disasters!

Ouh...eight emoticons already! I should stop with them right now before I get reprimanded!

Carni, good look with your trials in crossing Lithops. You can try it, why not!

Kindest regards

Andreas

Edited by Andreas Eils, 26 April 2011 - 21:43 PM.

[will9]

Hi Andreas are you sure its friedrichii?This plant have a totally other shape like dorothea!



Meaby a good start for make something new ,this plant is 5 years old

[Andreas Eils]

Hi Willy,

that L. dinteri ssp. fredericii is from Cono´s Paradise. To me the plant looks correctly determinated. It does have a slightly different shape than L. dorotheae. Perhaps they only look similar from above? I have also two ssp. fredericii from Kakteen Haage. They look more like yours on the photo. I will soonly transplant them and will also take pictures of them.

I only grow two subsp. of Dinteri :ssp. fredericii and ssp. multipunctata. My L. dinteri ssp. multipunctata C 181 is looking like this:



And that triple-lobed stone, is that a Schwantesii?

Regards

Andreas

[CactusChris]

I grow quite a few lithops, including Zorro, and it is not stabilised but some are almost windowless and with lightning streaks, I think this was what SH wanted.
In terms of steineckeana, I have a nice multiheaded plant from many years ago, the seeds do not give true looking steineckeana as they are crosses, and this seems true even of bought seed, ony a few look right.
I bought the cole book for £45 from Keith Larkin - he can be found on the cactus-mall site.
The multilobed plants are rare as hen's teeth. Many will do it for a year but then revert to normal, I have a few that are different but they take a lot of looking for and include many failures.
These plants are so easy from seed and there is a lot of seed available (including dinterops)

best regards
chris

[Carni]

Chris, you look very good at growing lithops ! For how many years are you growing them ?  

Andreas, I'm like you, I want to get lots of plants right now, as I'm starting cultivate them. I've learned a lot from SH book, I'm not a pro yet    I would like to find some kind of "multivergens" plant that keeps its particularities from year to year but I think it's rare. I have many years to learn and learn and learn about those little beautiful living stones, I hope I will always love them

Chris you should show us some pics  

[CactusChris]

Hi Carni,
i've grown some for many years, but have been incresing the collection quite a bit over the last couple of years. They are all compelling and interesting.
I'll try to post some pics this weekend
best regards
chris


L dinteri multipunctata

http://i128.photobuc...is/P1020862.jpg

zorro seedlings
http://i128.photobuc...is/P1020861.jpg

zorro seedlings
http://i128.photobuc...is/P1020860.jpg

dorothea
http://i128.photobuc...is/P1020859.jpg

Carni, on 27 April 2011 - 20:24 PM, said:

Chris, you look very good at growing lithops ! For how many years are you growing them ?  

Chris you should show us some pics  

Edited by CactusChris, 01 May 2011 - 15:28 PM.

[CactusChris]

Hi Carni,
added the photo links to the post above - and then realised that it would not show up as a new post.

chris