Haworthia truncata var. truncata

This plant commonly called perdetande was seen south of Oudtshoorn at the Minwater farm. The little row of leaf tips is sufficient for this window plant to grow, as the sun penetrates the translucent leaf tip windows to facilitate photosynthesis in cells inside the leaves, even deep inside.

Incidentally, the neighbour of the perdetande in the photo, Curio radicans or commonly in Afrikaans kraaltjies (little beads), is also a window plant. Dark slits down one side of the leaves are visible, the translucent areas where the sunlight enters to activate the photosynthetic process in the internal leaf cells situated along the inner leaf surfaces.

The short periods of sunlight reaching the leaves in their preferred shady spots under the Karoo bushes are sufficient for these perennials to manufacture the nourishment for their modest growth requirements (Scott, 1985; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2010).