"Hey, come outside and check this," said Pammy, "Cubey Guy is flowering."
Cubey guy?
"In the succulent patch... Cubey Guy... I don't know its name, but it's flowering," she replied to my quizzical look.
Indeed she was correct: Cubey Guy was flowering.
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| After never knowing its name for years, recently with the help of Lithops aficionado Ngeun, I now know that this blooming cubist person is Corpuscularia lehmannii. You can see where Pammy got 'Cubey Guy' from, though. And with Corpuscularia being one of the harder-to-remember, if not forgettable, names in the already difficult world of succulent botanical names, I fully suspect that Cubey Guy is Cubey Guy from now on. |
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| There are only about five flowers on the whole plant and each is small, just 1cm or so across, and shy, palest pink. |
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| Growth has been slow but steady in its new home; in fact I had to check an older photo taken last spring to confirm that, yes indeed, Cubey Guy has grown a fair bit in fact. |
STOP PRESS! Hold on a moment, folks. I posted these photos above of Cubey Guy this morning, and this afternoon the sun has come out strongly and guess what? Cubey has really burst into full bloom in glorious style. It has all happened in just two hours, so here are three hot-off-the-press pix of Cubey in his full yellow, sun-worshipping glory!
Hope you don't mind the dramatics, but I just had to set the record straight. Now, we resume normal transmission.
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| Cubey's neighbour doesn't have a nickname but it is in bloom now, too. This is Echeveria 'Topsy Turvey', a most unusual member of the popular group of succulents which a lot of readers would know as 'hen and chickens', the rosette-shaped echeverias with the grey-blue foliage. |
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| Topsy Turvey is a magnificent weirdo, the kind of plant that you'd be likely to see on an alien planet, or at least standing in as an extra in the background on a Star Trek movie. |
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| When it isn't sending up spectacular flower stalks in February, 'Topsy Turvey' is still quite a remarkable looking plant, as this photo taken last December shows. You can kind-of, sort-of see a bit of echeveria family resemblance there, but only just. |
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| Nearby in the succulent patch, this plant isn't flowering yet, it's just warming up before it bursts into bloom in autumn. This is Sedum 'Autumn Joy', and if all goes according to plan this could be covered in a vividly colourful mass of either red, pink or pinky-brown blooms. I'm not sure what colour it will be and so until then Pammy and I will just have to live with the suspense. |
