Flora of New Zealand Series

lizard plant

Glabrous herb, not forming dense stands; stems simple, mottled, to c. 50 cm high, prostrate and rooting towards base, otherwise erect. Lvs simple, sessile, alternate, opposite, or occasionally in whorls of 3, 6-7 cm long, 4-5 mm thick, cylindric and subterete, pale green to whitish, brownish white, or pale brown, with irregular dark green, snakeskin-like patches along sides, uniformly pale beneath, with a narrow pale band on a darker background above, usually with several plantlets around the tapering apex. Infl. a rather dense, terminal, corymbose cyme, to c. 8 cm diam.; main axis to c. 5 cm long. Fls pendulous. Calyx c. 12 mm long, ± campanulate, not inflated in middle, brownish with whitish bloom; lobes 7-10 mm long, ± triangular. Corolla wine-red, becoming orange-red, especially lobes; tube c. 2.5 cm long, far exserted from calyx; lobes c. 10 mm long, ± broadly obovate to suborbicular, rounded or slightly mucronate. Stamens c. 3 cm long, pale pink. Styles c. 2.5 cm long, yellow. Follicles not seen.

N.: at 2 sites on Rangitoto Id (Auckland).

S.E. Africa 1988

Raw lava surrounding old habitation sites.

FL Jul-Sep.

Lizard plant is a popular pot plant and is often grown outside in warmer parts of N.Z. Plantlets are produced prolifically on the lvs and very easily become detached and form new plants. The related B. daigremontianum Raym.-Hamet et Perrier, devil's backbone, with large, ovate-triangular, toothed lvs with marginal plantlets is commonly cultivated. More widely grown is its hybrid with B. delagoense, B. 'Houghtonii', coconut plant, and this has been collected almost wild on Burgess Id (Mokohinau Group) and Rangitoto Id (Auckland); it has ± brown-mottled lvs with marginal plantlets like the lizard plant but the lamina is narrowly elliptic and has numerous sharply acute teeth. B. delagoense has nearly always been known as B. tubiflorum Harvey or Kalanchoe tubiflora (Harvey) Raym.-Hamet in N.Z., but Tölken, H. R., in Leistner, O. A. (Ed.) Fl. Southern Africa. 14, Crassulaceae (1985), has pointed out that the earlier name Kalanchoe delagoense Ecklon et C. Zeyher was validly published. However, others regard Ecklon and Zeyher's name as a nom. nud.