Trichodiadema mirabile

Trichodiadema mirabile is succulent plant of the genus Trichodiadema, native to the Western Cape Province, South Africa, where it is known from the Laingsburg area and especially from south-facing slopes.

Trichodiadema mirabile
Juvenile T. mirabilis in cultivation.
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Plantae
(unranked):
Angiosperms
(unranked):
Eudicots
(unranked):
Core eudicots
Order:
Caryophyllales
Family:
Aizoaceae
Genus:
Trichodiadema
Species:
T. mirabile
Binomial name
Trichodiadema mirabile
Schwantes

Description

A small, erect shrub, reaching up to 11 cm.

The leaves are erect, stiff and papillate, and each leaf is tipped with dark-brown, erect-inclining bristles.

The flowers are white to pale-cream in colour, with white filamentous staminodes at the centre, and are on short stalks.

The fruit capsule has six locules, each locule with distinctive V-shaped covering membranes.[1]

It very closely resembles Trichodiadema orientale, a species from the Eastern Cape, which however has 5 locules, longer papillae on its bladder cells, and has flowers that are more pinkish-white (sometimes white with pinkish petal tips).

Trichodiadema mirabile, T. orientale and T. hallii are the only three species in the genus to have erect-inclining diadem bristles.[2]


References
  1. Hartmann, H.E.K.; Niesler, I.M. (2013). "A new morphological study of the genus Trichodiadema (Aizoaceae) permits the description of a new subgenus, T. subg. Gemiclausa". Bradleya. 31: 58–75. doi:10.25223/brad.n31.2013.a9.
  2. Hartmann, H.E.K (2017). Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants: Aizoaceae F-Z. Springer-Verlag.


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