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Neat miniature Oaxacan Sedum sp.

Posted: Tue May 16, 2017 8:43 am
by Stone Jaguar
Greetings:

Some years back, a good friend traveled through southern Mexico photographing orchids and other interesting native plants. He stopped at a cliff face locality at 1750 m along Hwy 135D on the border between Oaxaca and Puebla and on the road to Tehuacan to photograph a colony of the carnivorous butterwort, Pinguicula aff. mirandae. Growing together with the pinguicula was a very handsome miniature lithophytic succulent that he collected a few small stems of.

He gave me some unrooted pieces about six years ago that I then grew out and distributed to several friends in Guatemala. I imported a small start several years back and have been growing it as a windowsill plant ever since. I have not been able to identify it since it is extremely reluctant to flower. Thus far only one person that I gave plants to has been able to flower it, but forgot to take photos or notes. It superficially resembles S compactum, but so do many other miniature Mexican sedums. Makes a great dish plant, but is structurally hyperfragile and sheds stems with wild abandon when touched. The plant has a marked seasonal dormancy from late November through early April in California. I would assume that in habitat growth restarts more or less around this time as well (= end of the dry season).
Sedum sp. cf compactum.jpg
Sedum sp. cf compactum.jpg (176.52 KiB) Viewed 886 times
Sedum sp. detail.jpg
Sedum sp. detail.jpg (161.43 KiB) Viewed 886 times
Stems are about 1 cm wide. Any thoughts as to possible identities based on locality?

Cheers,

Jay

Re: Neat miniature Oaxacan Sedum sp.

Posted: Tue May 30, 2017 10:49 am
by Stone Jaguar
While teasing out some stems for transplant to smaller pots as a trade item,I noticed that this species develops a subterranean tuber. This feature seems to make it much more likely that it is indeed S. compactum or a sib species.
Sedum cf compactum tuber.jpg
Sedum cf compactum tuber.jpg (89.77 KiB) Viewed 843 times
Now, if I could just get this wretched dwarf to flower.