What are your favourite Conophytum and Lithops plants?

[ize89]

What are you favourite Conophytum and Lithops plants? Write it, post pictures of it and if you have them please show your collection.

[rodsmith]

You asked for it . My favourites are the ones I've grown from seed, as follows:

Conophytum pellucidum SH2796

Conophytum pellucidum SH620

Lithops dorotheae

Lithops hallii

Lithops karasmontana Signalberg

Lithops karasmontana ssp eberlanzii

Lithops localis (terricolor)

Lithops marmorata

L:ithops olivacea nebrownii

Lithops optica

Lithops otzeniana

Lithops salicola

[MikeT]

I only have one Cono in the greenhouse, a not very impressive bilobum which surveys rather than flourishes. It could be a favourite only to it's mother. I did have the great privilege in 2015 of visiting some Cono sites and Conophytum pellucidum near Concordia became my favourite Cono. Tiny but beautiful. Amazing little things.

And to give the scale...

[FaeLLe]

Any reliable source recommendations for Conophytum seeds?

Just won my first one from the BCSS Dartford meeting yesterday so looking forward to kicking off some more in a seed tray to grow as a cluster.

Any recommendations on whether a pure mineral mix (like pumice / akadama) works better for them or regular cacti mix?

[jhb]

I would say that Dorothea has to be top of my list. But then again I love all my Lithops.

[iann]

What are you favourite Conophytum and Lithops plants? Write it, post pictures of it and if you have them please show your collection.

How long have you got? It would be quicker to list my less-favourite Lithops Anyway, despite the relative plainness and tall habit, I do like L. viridis.

[ize89]

This post seems to be doing well and very interesting thank you guys. For me my favourites are;

Lithops lesliei jambourree
Lithops lesliei 'Fred's Redhead'
Lithops otzeniana acf 'Cesky Granat'
Conophytum chrisolum
Conophytum chrisocruxum - all varieties
Conophytum pageae - most varieties
Conophytum youngii
Conophytum cubicum blk face mountain
Conophytum hammeri

there is a lot more, but that's a pretty good list

[Terry S.]

ize89 - if you were to buy those particular plants at Chinese or Korean prices, the cost would run into many thousands of pounds! Add a couple of 'Makin's Plum' and you might be up to five figures. I am being a bit frivolous but there is a big distortion in the mesemb and adromischus market being created by far eastern demand.

FeiLLe - You have got a top conophytum grower in Dartford branch to advise on growing them. With regards to mineral mixes for mesemb seed sowing, I would think that Akadama or moler clay products would be much too coarse and open, the seeds would disappear down the cracks. A friend who grows haworthias really well in pure Akadama has problems growing even mature cono plants in that medium. Another friend in Germany sows seeds and grows his mesembs in pure bims (pumice) but that contains a wide range of particle sizes including a lot of fine material that creates a flat compost surface and also retains more water than baked clay products. But if you use such mixes then you have an additional problem of providing nutrition.

My current medium for sowing cono and lithops seeds is a 1:1 mixture of John Innes seed compost and Meadow View horticultural potting grit ECO. Seeds are sown on the compost surface without any covering and the Ken Burke plastic bag method is not brilliant for most mesembs; it is only really useful when you intend to leave seedlings in the bags for many months. The grit that I use might seem to have a lot of fine material in it, but it really helps to develop good root systems on the babies. My diurnal temperature ranges for germination are around 8-20C for conos and 15-30C for lithops.

And the original question - it is difficult to beat Lithops otzeniana in its various colour forms with those lovely scalloped edges to the pattern.

[Ali Baba]

Here are some of my Conos.
Some from seed, some from ChrisR.
My favourite is hard to say, but probably C. pearsonii (second down from the right under a mas of dead flowers)for its lovely blue green bodies and reliable jolly purple flowers...

[ize89]

ize89 - if you were to buy those particular plants at Chinese or Korean prices, the cost would run into many thousands of pounds! Add a couple of 'Makin's Plum' and you might be up to five figures. I am being a bit frivolous but there is a big distortion in the mesemb and adromischus market being created by far eastern demand.

Quite right, I have seen this myself. All the more reason to keep preserving these little heavens within the EU. The far east behaviour in my eyes is not acceptable; their buy everything they can and sell everything at ridiculous prices, is against what I believe.