LITHOPS MARMORATA IN HABITAT

摘要

Lithops marmorata is often called the marbled Littiops since the faces of some of these plants resemble a marbled surface. The plants are common in cultivation and are popular as show plants because they tend to cluster nicely and neatly for the showbench. The two variations, marmorata and elisae basically differ from each other in that the faces of var. elisae normally do not show windows but only narrow channels and grooves. Furthermore, the plants are generally larger than the nominate variationand when turgid the leaf-pairs are usually much more widely divergent in var. elisae than in var. marmorata. "Perfect" specimens of these two variations are easy to identify, although Cole & Cole (2005) stated that "Occasionally plants from colonies of var, marmorata are very similar to var. elisae, and conversely, some specimens of var. elisae have wide channels and are indistinguishable from var. marmorata", whilst Hammer (2010), after discussing the different geographical forms of Lithops marmorata,condensed this to "...var. marmorata and var. elisae can be confused."