Delosperma lineare

Delosperma lineare

€5,90
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Delosperma lineare
  • Delosperma lineare
  • Delosperma lineare
  • Delosperma lineare
  • Delosperma lineare
  • Delosperma lineare
  • Delosperma lineare
  • Delosperma lineare
  • Delosperma lineare
Delosperma lineare

Delosperma lineare

€5,90
Organic
Sustainable
Locally grown

Delosperma lineare is a low-growing, fast-spreading succulent with thin, elegant leaves that form a dense, carpet-like ground cover.

Its bright green, sedum-like foliage, resembling tiny caterpillars, creates a lush and weed-suppressing mat, perfect for filling bare spaces in the garden.

When in bloom, the nectar-rich flowers of Delosperma lineare attract bees and other pollinators, adding life and color to flower beds.
Flowering June, July, August, September, October
Flower Color Fuchsia
Exposure Full Sun
Frost Tolerance -5°C
Size 0.2m H x 0.6m W
Soil Dry
Origin South Africa
pda291
€5,90
1 left

🪴9x9 cm

🚂 Ships across EU
🌱 Grown in our nursery
Gardening Tips

👨‍🌾 Perfect for dry, water-wise gardens, this low-maintenance plant thrives in well-drained, poor soils, making it ideal for rock gardens, slopes, and borders.
✂️ Can grow very quickly if it likes its environment & observe carefully to prevent a full scale invasion
The Botany

Floral Morphology

The flowers of Delosperma lineare are solitary or borne near the tips of the shoots.

They open only in bright sunlight and close at night or on dull days.

Each bloom is radially symmetrical, composed of a small calyx of five sepals surrounding a radiant halo of petaloid staminodes.

These colorful, strap-shaped filaments—often magenta, violet, orange, yellow, or white—are modified sterile stamens rather than true petals > an optimization in and of itself one might add.

Delosperma lineare has bright yellow flowers.

At the center stands a tuft of fertile stamens encircling the inferior ovary.

When pollination succeeds, the ovary develops into a dry capsule that demonstrates one of the genus’s most remarkable traits: hygrochasy.

What is hygrochasy?

The opening of a fruit (or flower) in reaction to the presence of rain.

This means that the capsule carrying the seeds ONLY opens when it is moistened by the rain - closing again as it dries.

This mechanism ensures that seeds are dispersed precisely when conditions favor germination.

In-sane.

Ecology

Pollination is usually carried out by bees, flies, and butterflies attracted by the brilliant colors and reflective sheen of the flowers rather than by fragrance.

In their native habitats, Delospermas occupy niches between rocks and in thin soils where water drains rapidly.

Their compact roots and succulent leaves make them perfectly suited to such conditions, and these same adaptations have made them popular garden plants in regions with hot summers and cold winters.

Learn more about gardening with Delosperma:
The Myth

The name Delosperma, meaning “visible seed” in Greek, refers to the transparent membranes of its fruit capsules through which the seeds can be seen.

Early European botanists were fascinated by the plants’ glistening leaves, believing that the crystals might be salt or even frozen dew, hence the enduring common name “ice plant.”

Modern botanists, however, value Delosperma for different reasons: the mechanical elegance of its seed capsules, which move with changes in humidity without any living tissue, offering insights into natural materials engineering.

Delosperma is a genus of succulent perennials belonging to the Aizoaceae, the ice plant family.

Native to southern and eastern Africa, these plants thrive in arid and semi-arid landscapes, from the rocky slopes of South Africa’s Cape provinces to the high mountains of Lesotho and Ethiopia.

They form low, spreading mats or cushions, rooting along the stems as they creep across the ground.

The leaves are opposite, fleshy, and usually cylindrical or triangular in cross-section.

Under sunlight their surfaces glisten because of epidermal bladder cells filled with water; these translucent cells scatter light and give the plants their characteristic icy sparkle while serving as miniature reservoirs that reduce water loss and leaf temperature.

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