Conophytum obcordellum ending a hard season

Flowering of this Conophytum obcordellum plant is not vigorous this year. The open flowers spread only their petal tips tentatively, the calyces already partly browned and translucent.

Only at the very bases of the calyces some pink-purple signs suggest that there may have been more colour earlier. Even if the photographer was too late for capturing peak performance, there is the absence of flowers from more than half the leaf-pairs to cast doubt on the performance.

C. obcordellum flowers open mainly nocturnally. They are also strongly scented, probably moth targets. The scent of this Conophytum has been likened to that of carnation flowers (Grenier, 2019; Frandsen, 2017).