A Strange Plant [Lithops] Stone-Plant

A Strange Plant [Lithops] Stone-Plant

Origin:South Africa

SCIENTIFIC NAME Lithops karasmontana

Note: The name originally From the Greek: lithos = stone, ops = face
POPULAR NAME: Lateritia, stone-living, plant-stone.

Scientific Name: Popular Lithops: Lithops, litops, stone-living, plant-stone, stone cactus. Family: Aizoaceae Division: Angiospermae Origin: S.Africa
Lithops is a genus of succulent plants in the ice plant family, Aizoaceae. Members of the genus are native to southern Africa. The name is derived from the Ancient Greek words λίθος (lithos), meaning "stone," and ὄψ (ops), meaning "face," referring to the stone-like appearance of the plants. They avoid being eaten by blending in with surrounding rocks and are often known as pebble plants or living stones. The formation of the name from the Greek "-ops" means that even a single plant is called a Lithops.



Individual Lithops plants consist of one or more pairs of bulbous, almost fusedleaves opposite to each other and hardly any stem. The slit between the leaves contains the meristem and produces flowers and new leaves. The leaves ofLithops are mostly buried below the surface of the soil, with a partially or completely translucent top surface or window allowing light to enter the interior of the leaves for photosynthesis.

During winter a new leaf pair, or occasionally more than one, grows inside 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 in habitat almost never have more than one leaf pair per head, the environment is just too arid to support this. Yellow or white flowers emerge from the fissure between the leaves after the new leaf pair has fully matured, one per leaf pair. This is usually in autumn, but can be before the summer equinox in L. pseudotruncatella and after the winter equinox in L. optica. The flowers are often sweetly scented.

The most startling adaptation of Lithops is the colouring of the leaves. The leaves are not green as in almost all higher plants, but various shades of cream, grey, and brown, patterned with darker windowed areas, dots, and red lines. The markings on the top surface disguise the plant in its surroundings.









Lithops occur naturally across wide areas of Namibia and South Africa, as well as small bordering areas in Botswanaand possibly Angola, from sea level to high mountains. Nearly a thousand individual populations are documented, each covering just a small area of dry grassland, veld, or bare rocky ground.