I have a pot with several L. karasmontana lericheana and one of them exhibit some injury in the new leaves. The leaves are emerging with these bounds, it isn't sunburn. Any ideas?
It could be sunburn. No saying what happened to those tiny leaves when they were first forming last year. Damage on the new leaves is often from thrips, but not usually such big single scars. Those look more like old slug bites, but hard to see how they could have got at those leaves. Shame when it happens to the new leaves.
It does look a lot like sunburn. If the old leaves were cracked open just a tiny bit the new leaves could have gotten exposed and burned as well.
I managed to cook a good number of lithops this year when they were exposed to full sun after having been sheltered for a while (and still before their first drink of the year). Probably killed at least one and in many cases multiple of most species.
Interestingly, the ones most affected were the ones closest to a wall (definitely the hottest) - the ones farther away from the wall but with the same amount of sun were completely fine. Now I also know that some species are tougher than others - lesliei (but not aucampiae) is tough as old boots, viridis not so much. Julii and karasmontana are pretty resistant as well. I'm sure it is (to some degree) related to the opacity of the windows.
Thanks. I said it is not sunburn because I know that it looks like sunburn. However, the new leaves are emerging with these scars, as can be appreciated, so no way of being exposed to sun. Moreover, the two pictures are from opposing sides of the plant, and those of the second picture are facing northeast. I have lots of Lithops under the same conditions, many of them much more sensitive to sun, and this is the only one with this kind of damage. They look similar to the injuries caused by some caterpillars (typically attacking my plants in early autumn), but it is hard to imagine how any bug has been able to reach the new leaves without drilling the old ones.
I wonder if you may have watered this plant overhead, maybe accidentally, at the time of the bud forming or when it was flowering. The damage is either side of the flower stalk which is what made me ask. If that is the case then at least you can be sure that in one year's time the damage will not be visible on the next set of leaves.
For sure not when the flower was open because I am very careful not to wet the flowers, but I couldn't say for sure at the time of bud formation. In any case I will be watching, thanks Suzanne.
