Jade plant - Crassula argentea

Jade plants are native to South Africa. They need a reasonable amount of sunlight, and not too much water since they're succulents and adapted to a dry climate. They're evergreens.

I split these plants when I first got them, so now I have a number of separate plants.





All doing well so far!

Kingdom: Plantae
Subkingdom: Tracheobionta (vascular plants, as opposed to non-vascular plants like mosses, hornworts, and liverworts) (on a side note -- now I totally want to grow hornworts and examine their slime pores)
Phylum/division: Magnoliophyta (flowering plants, or angiosperms -- though there's some debate about how (and whether) to treat this as a division)
Class: Magnoliopsida (dicotyledons, i.e. plants whose seed has two embryonic leaves instead of one; again, there's some debate about how to define this class or whether it should exist at all)
Subclass: Rosidae
Order: Saxifragales (I love that name) under the new classification systems; until recently, these plants were placed in the order Rosales (a great order that has given the world roses, peaches, cannabis, and hops) under the old classification systems
Family: Crassulaceae (apparently all plants in this family are succulents)
Genus: Crassula
Species: C. ovata
(I need to work on learning more about the APG II system to see whether I should be giving up on listing all that stuff above.)

Small Red Carpet Stonecrop - Crassula radicans

The "Red Carpet" part of this plant's name comes from the red coloration on the leaves, which you can see from the photo is . . . not there. So either my plant had an incorrect marker on it, or the red is yet to emerge. I will be keeping an eye on this.
This is another succulent, so needs sun and not too much water.
This plant, like so many of my other succulents, is native to South Africa. Apparently South Africa is some sort of succulent factory.

Phylum/division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Saxifragales
Family: Crassulaceae
Genus: Crassula
Species: C. radicans

Miniature Pine Tree - Crassula tetragona

I accidentally ended up with a small piece of a Miniature Pine Tree plant in the pot that one of my Jade Plants came in. Since -- through mechanisms I am still attempting to investigate -- succulents are typically capable of taking root when a leaf is planted, I thought I would plant the little piece of tree and see whether I could get it to grow. I can't tell whether it's actually taken root without pulling it up, which I'd rather not do, but since it's been a couple weeks and the leaves haven't started to crinkle or wither, I suspect it has rooted. Part of the purpose of this blog was to better track whether it's actually starting to grow (since succulents are usually slow-growing, so it's hard to tell from day to day).

This plant is native to South Africa.


Phylum/division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Saxifragales
Family: Crassulaceae
Genus: Crassula
Species: C. tetragona

Springtime - Hybrid of Crassula perfoliata and Crassula falcata

This "Springtime" is a cultivar -- a hybrid of Crassula perfoliata and Crassula falcata. Crassula perfoliata is native to a region of Africa covering South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. Crassula falcata is native to South Africa. They are both succulents, and as such this plant requires a good amount of sun and not too much water.


Phylum/division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Saxifragales
Family: Crassulaceae
Genus: Crassula
Species: Hybrid of C. perfoliata and C. falcata

Autumn Fire - Sedum

I got these plants because they're supposed to have "winter interest" -- i.e., they look good dead. So now I'm just eagerly awaiting their demise.

The plan is that during the winter, when I have to put most of my outdoor flower pots in storage, I can at least have these to look at.

Sedum is a succulent, as evidenced by its thick, waxy leaves. I read that unlike most of my other succulents, though, it isn't native to Africa but rather to North America. However, now that I know it's in the same family (Crassulaceae) as my South African succulents, I'm a little suspicious. Was it carried over by an African swallow? Or by two swallows, carrying it together? I kind of doubt it. Something to research.

One thing I find interesting about this plant is that it's very hard to water it in such a way that the water falls anywhere near the plant's base, because the leaves cause the water to run off away from the middle of the plant. This makes me wonder whether its root system functions better when the roots receive smaller amounts of water spread over a wider area rather than a lot of water descending upon the center of the root system. I haven't been able to find an answer to this question yet, though.

The flowers on these were beige a couple weeks ago, and now they've just turned pink. Within a couple more weeks they should turn a brighter, darker shade of pink.


Phylum/division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Saxifragales
Family: Crassulaceae
Subfamily: Sedoideae
Genus: Sedum
Species: ?? Can't find a scientific species name for this