Rosary Vine Plant - Crassula rupestris

Crassula rupestris is a colourful and free-flowering, erect, spreading or decumbent much branched shrublets up to 500 mm high, with a fine display of greyish or pinkish leaves that have horny red or yellow margins. The leaves, borne on opposite sides of the shoots, connect at the base to give the foliage the appearance of a string of beads. Produces dense heads of many pink or white flowers in close bunches at the ends of the branches. Origin and Habitat: From Vanrhynsdorp in the west to the Fish River valley in the Eastern Cape. Stem: Round branched a palm and more in height clothed by leaves, with old leaves usually deciduous. Root: Perennial branched. Leaves: In closely-set opposite pairs, fleshy, ovate, to lance-shaped, quite entire, approximate convex and carinated beneath, obtuse or rounded, 3-15 mm long, 2-13 mm broad, smooth, glabrous or distinctly soft-hairy, leaf bases fused into a fleshy disc, glaucous-green, brownish-red or purple with red or yellow margin. Inflorescences (thyrses): Capitate, trichotomous, short-stalked, rounded. Peduncle up to 20 mm long and partly hidden by upper leaves, with spreading bracts at least 3 mm long at base of inflorescence. Flowers: White or pinkish. Pedicels glabrous of a purplish colour. Calyx lobes narrowly to broadly triangular, c. 1 mm long, pointed, glabrous, fleshy, glaucous-green often tinged red. Corolla tubular, fused basally for 0,4-0,6 mm, white and more or less tinged pink or red. Stamens with brown anthers. Squamae oblong to square, 0,4-0,9 x 0,3-0,6 mm, usually truncate, rarely somewhat cuneate, fleshy yellow. Blooming season: Spring (flowering in habitat from June to October). Hardiness: Although the plants will survive mild frost if kept dry (hardy as low as -5° C) they should be protected from frost to prevent scarring. USDA 9b-12 Sun Exposure: They need full sun or bright, filtered light with ample airflow to stay compact, but avoid direct blasting sun in mid summer (with sun exposure the leaf develops a nice brownish tint), they do not do well in full shade as they tend to etiolate, fall over and rot easily. Some of the information in this description has been found at desert-tropicals.com, llifle.com and cactus-art.biz