Shriveled Lithops

[Wire Man]

I don't think pictures are worth posting, as it's probably past the point of no return.

Anyways, my brown Lithops has shriveled up and not produced a new pair of leaf lobes. The roots are a yellowish brown colors. Any ideas what happened to it? It's in a stoneware planter I made with 2 species of Haworthia and a Faucaria tigrina.

 

[Clue]

Too cold?

 

[seedjar]

Apparently some of them spend half the year looking shriveled and absolutely dead, then when the summer rains come they rehydrate, crack open, and a new body pops out. With I'd known that before I tossed my Conophytum. XD
~Joe

 

[swords]

If it is the common two lobe Lithops genus then it it likely done for, they should be plump. They can be allowed to shrivel and pull down into the substrate and then be watered and watched to fill back up but there is a point when they can get too dry then all is lost. It should have bloomed sometime between October and New Years and then begun inflating a new body in the crack between the two existing lobes of the old body between New Years and Spring. Once the new body has begun inflating you must quit watering until the two outter lobes have shriveled into papery shell and the inner body inflated. Then you can begin giving water again. Watering while the new body is inflating causes the plant try to keep the two old lobes and still produce the new seasons body. This is called "stacking" and is bad for them because this distorts the plant out of proper shape and eventually kills it by strangling it and cutting it off from it's roots.

Conophytums die off between spring & summer to a papery shell . Deep inside there is a healthy green body hiding out from the worst of the South African sun, in august or September rains fall and the shell cracks open and the inner body swells up and the Conophytum lives from Fall through spring. However Conophytums are quite rare and it's not common for people to have them by accident as opposed to the standard Lithops species found at Lowes, Home Depot and most plant nurseries. Conophytums usually command a far higher price and generally have spherical single lobe bodies with no crevase as opposed to the lithops body made up of the two bean shaped lobes.

 

[Smitty]

Lithops you say?

Mine are are busy throwing new lobes as we speak. One is about finished and is almost ready to water...The other has just begun to start to divide and will not get any more water until it has shriveled lobes like its other partner.

A little blurry but you can see the lobes breaking through...

This one is finished and almost ready to take on water again.

 

[swords]

Nice looking Lithops NY no stacking!

Just so people are clear here is what Conophytums look like when coming up from inside the dried shells, this was my old Conophytum minutum "Witterburgenese":

The ones in the pic who appear to be two lobed are actually in the process of dividing into two single lobed plants.

 

[Wire Man]

Woah, the Conophytums look amazing! I'd love to try those as soon as I perfect the art of the Lithops. The current temp in my apartment is 72 F. I'll see if I can revive it before tossing it. It looks like it still has some life in it. I'll definitely make a new planter just for Lithops soon. Swords, you're like a living encyclopedia of plant knowledge.

 

[Irricanor]

nice lithops, funny how on the L. olivacea Red Olive the old lef is still plump and on the L. lesliei Warrenton Form the old leaf is wrinkly.

great plants