Lithops flowering stones pdf Continue Lithops Blossom Stones Desmond T Cole and Naureen A.Cole 261 pages, hardback, ISBN 88-900511-7-5 (First pubished in csSA Journal and reprinted in the Mesemb Study Group Newsletter.) When first published in 1988 Lithops Flowering Stones was widely recognized as a unique fine achievement. It was soon sold out, making this new enlarged and relatively inexpensive version even more desirable. Note the co-authorship: the irreplaceable Naurin Cole finally appears on the front page with her more public husband. Seventeen years is a long time in botanical life, but there was relatively little to renew; only three previously unknown species came to light. Two of them are included here, reports of the fourth and fifth being vague as models of the third, the enigmatic little Namibian, who appeared too late for inclusion in this book. Otherwise the perfectly polished text is worth as it was, with little tweaks here and there. I only want the book to be expanded to include old Cole essays published in magazines now hard to obtain. Many of them have clarified the mysteries left by G.K. Ell, the chaotically astute author of the first full-scale work on Lithops. The essays are reflected, but not necessarily summarized in the texts of 1988 and 2005. Physically, the new edition is a big improvement over its predecessor. It has grown twice as much, mainly due to the fascinating addition of habitat photos for each species and all but two subspecies. Unusually, lithops are an expression of specific niches - those who doubt that Desmond Cole's images of L.comptonii var should be tested. weberi pocketed in limestone, L.hermetica lurks on its rough and lonely gray of the Eminence, shrivelled pieces of L.hookeri var. elephina among Henry Murish sandstone, or dark and implausibly brilliant iron stone, which cradles equally shiny L.hookeri var. subfenestrata. Understanding of species and their relationships is enhanced by the geographical point of view offered here. The close-up portraits were taken at the Coles Litoparium near Johannesburg. The plants were so carefully anchored in their native soil and stone and so well cared for that, given the lack of visible pots, they could have been photographed in the wild if the wild had been well watered a month or two earlier. I compared the portraits in my 1988 copy with their 2005 counterparts (most of them repeated); 2005 wins in each case, the colors are more true and the sense of dimension is greater. (It's possible that the pigments in my old sun-cooked copy have disappeared a little with age.) Some of the recently noticed people have an impossible beauty - L.julii subsp. fulleri var. rouxii on p.197 (top right) has a pattern of smoke rings, will affect anyone who is remotely susceptible to a spell of this kind. The beautiful dust jacket gives us nosegay L.karasmontana on the on front and stunning nouga there swirling form L.gracilidelineata on the back. The maps are equally excellent, presenting as a clear picture of distribution patterns as discretion and scale will allow. They also update a few puzzles from 1988, still resonant today: tell us more about that unnimer (and obviously non-Coleoran) L.otzeniana north of Kliprand! Who found these additional L.schwantesii subsp. gebseri population, and how do they look? (Most of us only know this taxon by its type of terrain, Cole 165.) The new book has the useful addition of a complete list of Cole's numbers and their euphemized data previously released as a brochure. (Several varietal identities have shifted.) There is also an artificial key that telescopes the subspecific ranges in their respective master species, thereby providing a charcoal view of each one. Lively drawings by Gerhard Marx, the best manufacturer of lithops I know, besides the flora itself. Binding and paper are first rate and usually command a much higher price than requested by Cactus and Co Libri, which should have a secret Euromint. I would only point out that some slides were zoomed in beyond their natural limits and one or two had to be cleaned better; The slide-shown motes are enlarged along with instructive rubrics, those reddish tattoos worn by so many kinds. Nothing more to ask for? Serial quibbles - deeply colored nomenclatureists and people who like to wake up sleeping dogs - can bark that there is no textual justification, the first source to use the name L.verruculosa Nel. (See Naple's original statement re L.inae, which, unequivocally, had blood-red dots; L.verruculosa was named after the tiny gray warts tucked into its grooves and thus preshealed to what we know as var. glabra de Boer. If you can credit Ell notes, as from Tenson Ell, like de Boer, flows from the Kenhardt area.) At a thorny point, Coles tacitly return to L.terricolor N.E.Br. after having adopted the older name, L.localis (N.E.Br.) Schwantes in their 2001 treatment of sorts (in Springer-Hartmann's handbook at Aizoaceae). There may be good reasons to return, but they are not given; neither the 2001 text nor my 1995 document on which it was dependent are cited in the relevant essay as unchanged from its 1988 incarnation. There is, however, a new essay about the long-lost L.halenbergensis Tischer. He talks about the recent search for this elusive taxon and rejects the theory that the original plants were hybrid in origin, despite the fact that they neatly blended the features of two other species known from Haalenberg. (What L.'karasmontana subsp. eberlanzii happened with L.francisci on Haalenberg (and Kovisberg) was witness to Wilhelm The presence of three species on one small formation is a pattern unknown in the genus, except for the famous triumvirate: the triumvirate: L.villetii subsp. deboeri, and L.julii subsp. fulleri (C 230 a, b, and c, east of Gamoep). It seems to me that subsp. The fulleri, found as one without a mating plant, arrived as a seed on Nel's shoes when he explored the same place in September 1946! It's a tripary wild hypothesis, but it doesn't seem like 230c is a viable population. I also doubt that L.halenbergensis had real vitality - if it wasn't a hybrid, perhaps it was a mutation of this kind that gave us the amazing yellow-flower L.optica 'Rubragold,' one of several recent varieties. Yes, varieties! These traffic-lit lollipops are prominent here. There are some dandy new; L.ruschiorum's white color 'Silver Reed' has a special elegance, contrasting with the usual sunny side of the L.ruschiorum up the circuit, and the color of the contested shape of L.hermetica 'Green Diamond' adds cool mossiness to the Namibian palette. I come in to know that all species end up going grassy or rubescent! A more striking point is that the greens or reds are influenced by the main pigmentations of the species, thus chartreuse L.hallii var. ochracea 'Soapstone' outgrew the grayish L.salicola 'Malachite,' and opaque sorbet-carmine L.meyeri'. Further breeding will undoubtedly strengthen parameters and capabilities. Meanwhile we have a much bigger and more important task of maintaining a clean look. The Master Cole Collection is now caught in an institutionalized desuetude and in some ways this book functions as his memorial. The perpetuation of the Cole system will depend entirely on the quality of secondary distributions. Desmond Cole's illustrations of cultivated plants remind us how desirable and complex it will be to perpetuate, while his habitat photographs and eloquent text confront us with the glory and fragility of nature. Available from Cactus and Co. in Europe. This book, like all cacti and co publications is an exceptional value for money. Alternative prices and affordability. Facebook Digg live stone redirects here. For the 1958 documentary, watch The Stone of the Living. Lithops Lithops sp. by Marlot Scientific Classification Kingdom: Plantae Clade: Tracheophytes Clade: Angiosperms Clade: Eudicots Order: Caryophyllales Family: Aizoaceae Subfies: Ruschioideae Tribe: Ruschieae Genus: LithopsN.E.Br. Species See text Lithops is a genus of succulent plants in the Aizoaceae ice plant family. The genus is native to southern Africa. The name comes from the ancient Greek word λίθος (lithos), which means stone, and ὄψ (ops), which means face, referring to the stone species of plants. They avoid being eaten by mixing in with surrounding rocks and are often known as pebble plants or living stones. Forming a name from the Greek means that even one plant is called Lithops. Description of Lithops hookeri. Between the old two new pairs of leaves appear, which leads to a two-headed plant Individual plants Lithops consist of one or more pairs of bulbous, almost fused leaves opposite each other and hardly a stem. The incision between the leaves contains a meristem and produces flowers and new leaves. The leaves of Lithops are mostly buried beneath the surface of the soil, with a partially or completely translucent upper surface known as a leaf window, allowing light to enter the interior of the leaves for photosynthesis. In winter, a new pair of leaves, and sometimes more than one, grows inside an existing pair of fused leaves. In the spring the old parts of the leaves are to reveal new leaves and the old leaves will then dry. Leaf lithops can shrink and disappear below ground level during drought. Lithops in habitat almost never have more than one pair of leaves per head, presumably as an adaptation to an arid environment. yellow or white flowers come out of the crack between the leaves after the new pair of leaves are fully ripe, one on a sheet of steam.