Crassula orbicularis leaves by the coast

These leaf rosettes of Crassula orbicularis were photographed at Wilderness. The leaves are ascending not adpressed, long and oblanceolate to obovate, tending to belie the plant’s orbicularis name that better suits the form growing in the Little Karoo north of the Outeniqua Mountains.

The bright green to dull purplish, red and brown leaf colourings and the marginal cilia, smaller than usual, do fit C. orbicularis, as well as the tendency of leaf tips to taper. Some other Crassula species also have marginal leaf cilia, such as C. intermedia that has four-ranked leaves in its rosette and C. ciliata (Moriarty, 1997; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010; iSpot).