wrinkly but flowery

Otzeniana has flowers.... for the second time this year. :)

flower XXL

Amazing how huge a lithops flower can get after only a couple of days!

yesterday

Otzeniana flower

helmotzeniana

The five-headed helmutii has gotten huge compared to April.

L. otzeniana wasn't that lucky this year: it had to deal with mealy bugs, was weakened and lost a couple of heads. It is about to bloom at the moment but I'm not sure if it's a good sign or a swan song.

some updates

I'm going to be away for a week. Tomorrow is Step 1 of moving back to my place. The plants will follow in Step 2 a couple of weeks later. It's going to be stressful but I'm looking forward to the new semester at the university. After all the moving around I long for routine in my life, some kind of stability, consistency. Striking roots would be really nice. :)

As for the plants, there are minor news like discovering that some of the young gracili are about to cast their skin. Or that this daikangyoku decided to flower out of it's smaller head a month after the bigger did (I really should take pictures of this). The flower might not open though, because it's gloomy all the time. This also means the pictures I take look just as gloomy. But no-sun worked wonders for all the badly wrinkled plants i.e. "pancakes", even one that I almost gave up on since it didn't show any response to water at all for a month and kept getting more and more wrinkles. Oh, and the misshapen hookeri had it's new leaves break through half way as expected. I think it's for the best.

To end this chaotic post here is the 8-headed otzeniana with a flower bud. See you in a week. :)

my big fat japanese otzeniana

Today another beautiful plant arrived at my home. Yes, it's one plant! I'm so excited :)