Lithops aucampiae subsp. aucampiae

This Lithops aucampiae subsp. aucampiae plant was seen in the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden during February. The leaf pairs have greyish translucent windows on their upper surfaces, fringed by irregularly shaped margins of the opaque orange skins that don’t allow sunlight to enter.

The windows may be reduced in some plants to small spots in a generally opaque, orange upper surface. White papery remains of old leaf-skins are lying next to the leaves in picture.

The subspecies occurs in the Northern Cape from Kimberley to Upington. The plants grow exposed on gravelly, quartzite flats, sparsely grassed. The subspecies is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Frandsen, 2017; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).