Crassula pellucida

Crassula pellucida is an annual or perennial herb. It has a spreading or sprawling habit and may become 10 cm tall. This is a very variable species of which five recognised subspecies occur in South Africa. Some are endemic, others also found in neighbouring countries of southern Africa.

The leaves and stems are soft, the plant decumbent to prostrate, old leaves not dropping off. The leaves are opposite on the stems and sessile, i.e. without stalks.

Leaf shape is ovate to nearly round, the tips sharply pointed and the margins toothed, finely scalloped or entire (subsp. alsinoides). Subsp. marginalis leaves have red margins and a central red line upon leaves otherwise yellowish green. The leaf blades of C. pellucida are thinly succulent, shiny and sometimes leathery.

The fresh green, ascending leaves with scalloped margins of the plant in picture were photographed in the Harold Porter National Botanical Garden. There are fine vein markings, dark in the upper leaf parts. The leaf tip protrudes slightly in a sharp point.

The species distribution is widespread in South Africa from the Western Cape to Limpopo and in southern Africa, the different subspecies occurring in more or less restricted parts of this region.

The habitat is shaded slopes, typically where some moisture might be available. None of the subspecies is threatened in habitat early in the twenty first century, although one (subsp. spongiosa) is rare, growing only from Nieuwoudtville to Calvinia in the Northern Cape (Frandsen, 2107; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; www.redlist.sanbi.org).