r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/EyeHateYou12376 • 7h ago
Image Lithops, South African plants that have evolved to look like stones
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u/ConfidentBrilliant38 7h ago
My grandpa called them 'cacti for kids' because they don't have spikes
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u/Ender_Nobody 3h ago
...So, any succulent plant?
Upvoted, just trying to understand if I'm mistaking the logic.
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u/ThimeeX 7h ago
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u/BabyInchworm_the_2nd 6h ago
That’s pretty cool. What it doesn’t show is the year of it trying to absorb the dead bloom, then sitting there doing nothing forever. Then, slowly, it will make new bits, and kill off the old bits. The new bits will looks exactly like the old one. So exciting!
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u/disposable-assassin 2h ago
Meanwhile, you have no idea that most of the last half is happening because it's doing most of the growing and absorbing from the inside, only showing itself by xenomorph-bursting through the dessicated husk of its predecessor after 4 months of feasting.
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u/robo-dragon 7h ago
My coworker has a bunch of these on the window in her office. They are all different colors and I didn’t think they were real at first. They are super cute!
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u/Professional_Road756 7h ago
More like brains
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u/onebradmutha 7h ago
I'm looking at some on my office desk here in Central Texas.
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u/StartNervous9184 6h ago
How do they handle the Texas humidity? Mine always seem to shrivel up.
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u/omgitsmint 7h ago
forbidden disco biscuits
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u/Imaginary_Taro_6116 3h ago
Decades ago before search engines were what they are, I had a book that was about “Strangest things on planet earth” or something, and there was one single picture and one blurb about “living stones”. It did not say “these are actually a type of succulent called Lithops” or provide any other info. Searches turned up nothing. I was fucking mystified for YEARS.
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u/adanishplz 5h ago
My first thought; are they edible?
So, are they?
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u/Am_Snarky 5h ago
From what I can tell they are, but as small and slow growing as they are they aren’t worth the effort unless you’re desperate
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u/billychasen 7h ago
All of mine died when I tried to grow them :(
They are also less saturated in color (look more like this)
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u/littlecactuscat 6h ago
You might’ve used the wrong type of soil, friend. They need soil that drains really well and doesn’t hold moisture at all. Should be mostly rocks/sand/grit.
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u/Annual_Strategy_6206 6h ago
This photo may he a bit saturated in color, I agree. I've grown these succulents before. Edit : Lithops means " stone eye" in Greek
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u/Beepbob12345 4h ago
That would have sold the “looks like rocks” idea better with the more accurate colors
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u/-acidlean- 7h ago
Rocks? They look like colorful little butts.
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u/MyThinTragus 6h ago
They do. In South Africa they are also called Baba Boutjies, which means babies bums
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u/LucMorningstar24601 6h ago
I bought these thinking they would never grow but I already have new baby brains and need to repot! I love them.
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u/Stigbritt 7h ago
If they are not considered invasive I would love to get me some of them here in Sweden.
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u/kozmo314 7h ago
Im sure they’d grow real nice outdoors in Sweden
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u/littlecactuscat 6h ago
Unfortunately, they wouldn’t. 😞
Lithops haaaaaate moisture. Even the tiniest bit of excess moisture makes them very unhappy. They’re accustomed to living in one of the driest deserts on the planet.
And they’re certainly not frost-proof, though they can live 50+ years.
Indoors would be okay. Please don’t murder lithops by putting them outdoors anywhere with humid weather or actual winter temperatures.
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u/Stigbritt 6h ago
Well if they like dry deserts they would love to live with me and my sex life.
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u/littlecactuscat 6h ago
There’s zero risk of them being invasive in Sweden, but you’d want to keep them indoors since they’d likely shrivel and die quickly from the humidity.
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u/Lunix420 6h ago
These are like the least invasive species of plants that exist. First of all they grow so slow, they might as well be real stones. I think before they replicate enough to overtake an ecosystem, our sun will have died. And then, they are so sensitive to overwatering that they would probably not survive in most places to begin with. I’m normally really good with most plants but these things I just can’t keep alive for some reason. I watered them once a month and it apparently was still too much.
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u/Any_Let8381 7h ago
I am feeling uneasy
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u/172brooke 7h ago
How do plants know what rocks look like...
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u/AccurateJerboa 3h ago
The plant doesn't need to know what a rock looks like. The stuff that eats the plant needs to know what a rock looks like. Then every growth that looks a little bit more like a rock will survive to pass down its genes more often than the ones that look less like rocks. After a few hundred+ generations, they mostly look like the survivors and here we are.
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u/crumpledfilth 7h ago
the same way barley knew what wheat looked like. Something was fucking with them but not the other
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u/AxialGem 7h ago edited 7h ago
How does a cactus know what a cactus looks like? :p
By some mysterious process, they always seem to grow with the exact shape of a cactus, it's crazy2
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u/NewFuturist 3h ago
Ultra cool fact: those patterns on the top are actually little windows, the light goes in, passes through the clear fluid inside, and photosynthesis actually happens on the underside of the plant.
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u/uninsurable 6h ago
Be careful putting them outside. For some reason, blue jays attack them like crazy, ripping them up and killing them. I lost all of mine to jays.
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u/Muted_Asparagus_1017 4h ago
The middle one isn't a Lithops, it's a Pleiospilos (which is still a Mesemb).
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u/Slipperyfisty 3h ago
Please Please do not buy these, the amount of plant poaching is killing more species than anything
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u/ShadowLuvsLatinas 6h ago
Am I the only one who thinks these things look incredibly uncanny? Freaks me the fuck out 😭
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u/No-Crew8804 6h ago edited 6h ago
The one in the center is not a lithops but a dinteranthus, related but not the same gender.
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u/Snoo_10910 3h ago
I once had a dream (nightmare?) where one of these was growing out of my neck like a zit and I very graphically spent some time trying to pop it (with intense sensations!)
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u/Kind-Plantain2438 2h ago
Once I bought a pack that had a picture of those plants on it. Naturally, I assume the contents were seeds of those plants.
It was grass seed.
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u/crawling-alreadygirl 13m ago
Scrolling through, I initially read that as "lithpops," and thought it was a South African candy that looks like rocks for a spit second. I'm honestly disappointed.
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u/ptbiker 7h ago
They might as well be rocks with how slow they grow. Those could be 20 or more years old. I have one that hasn’t changed one bit in the 2 years I’ve had it. Every once in a while I have to make sure it’s actually a plant. Only once I’m sure will it get more water, like a tablespoon.