Description
Lithops lesliei is a medium sized Lithops, easily recognised by miniature circular transparent windows forming a lecework in the opaque covering ranging in colour from Brown Coffee to green grass, green grey, pinkish grey, rusty orange. Each growth consists of two leaves closely pressed together or united, except for a central fissure across the top, from which the large yellow flowers are produced. This species is quite variable and the colours and face pattern varies in plant from different provenance. As with many other Lithops species, several varieties have been described on the basis of variation in the colour of the tops of the leaves.
Habit: Growth solitary or forming clumps of 2 or more.
Bodies (paired leaves): Medium-large, rounded from above, profile truncated, top of lobes elliptic-reniform, flat, smooth, sometimes slightly convex; sides coloured purple-grey, brownish or green; windows always present, rarely ridged or fully open, dark-green, consisting of small irregular, extremely variable confluent areas; densely or sparsely covered with dull orange, yellowish or rust-coloured irregular projections from the slightly raised margins; in these projections small round dark-green openings; outer margin distinct but very irregular, laciniae being very short, others projecting into the window; inner margin nearly straight or provided with obtuse very short lobes, giving the whole margin a wavy appearance; on outer edge of the margins few or many irregular distributed more or less circular windows.
Flowers: Large yellow, rarely white
Blooming season: Autumn (in habitat blooms in April)
Fruits: Mostly 6-cambered.
Seeds: Large, reddish.
Chromosome number: 2n = 18
Origin and Habitat
10 km South-East of Pietersburg, South Africa.
Habitat: It grows in areas where summer rains are common and often heavy, the plants are often found growing in gravel pockets amongst grasses. Substrate in alkaline pans and conglomeritic sandstone, brown siltstone, quartzite, ferruginuous quartzite, lava,white calcite. The plants mimic the small rocks that surround them.
Cultivation and Propagation
Lithops lesliei 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 hight 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.
Notes: 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”.
Bibliography
Major refences and further lectures
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Heidrun E. K. Hartmann “Aizoaceae F – Z” Springer 2002
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Achim Hecktheuer “Mesembs, mehr als nur Lithops” Books on Demand GmbH Norderstedt. 2008
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Desmond T. Cole & Naureen A. Cole, Uwe Beyer, Yves Delange “Les Lithops” SUCCULENTES Spécial 2008 AIAPS (now Terra seca). 2008
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Desmond T. Cole & Naureen A. Cole “LITHOPS Flowering Stones” Cactus & Co. Libri. 2005
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Yasuhiko Shimada “The Genus Lithops” Dobun Shoin. 2001
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Rudolf Heine “Lithops - Lebende Steine” Neumann Verlag. 1986
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Bernd Schlösser “Lithops – Lebende Steine” Praktische Anleitung für die Zimmerkultur. BussinessPoint MEDIA. 2000
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Steven A. Hammer “Lithops – Treasures of the veld” British Cactus and Succulent Society. 1999
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Desmond T. Cole “Lithops – Flowering Stones” Acorn Books 1988
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Rudolf Heine “Lithops – lebende Steine” Neumann Verlag. 1986
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David L. Sprechman “Lithops” Associated University Presses, Inc. 1970
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Gert Cornelius Nel “Lithops” Hortors Limited, South Africa 1946
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Edgar Lamb “The illustrated reference on cacti and other succulents” Blandford Press. 1978
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Christopher Brickell, Royal Horticultural Society “RHS A-Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants: K-Z., Volume 2” Kindersley, 2008
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G. C . Nel “Lithops: Plantae succulantae, rarissimae, in terra obscuratae, e famailia Aizoaceae, ex Africa australi” Hortors Limited, Cape Town, South Africa 1946
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Heidrun E. K. Hartmann “Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants: Aizoaceae F-Z” Springer, 2002
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