Gibbaeum dispar flowering

Flowering of Gibbaeum dispar happens in late autumn to winter. The plant in the photo, flowering in the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden in June, projects the same signal as a smile does among people. Flower colour is pink or pinkish violet, the flower size about 1,5 cm in diameter when fully open.

In this peak life period, the leaves are lush, very capable of delivering their best to the flowers. The flowers in turn have every chance of setting seed successfully. Robust growth in the form of quick emergence of new leaf pairs beside the flowers confirm the advent of good times that must be capitalised upon. When the young leaves attain maturity, the old ones will have disappeared.

The leaf-pairs are opposite though unequal, the inner surfaces nearly flat, the big bulge being on the outside. The Afrikaans common name of papegaaibek (parrot beak) approaches description of the leaf-shape. The velvety leaf texture is attained from the abundance of tiny papillae on the surface (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; http://llifle.com).