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Conophytum flavum SB2136 Kosies, Steinkopf, Little Namaqualand, N-W Cape Province, S.A. This is a beautiful species with quite big, flat,  pale bluish-green bodies with large yellow flowers
 

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Photo of conspecific taxa, varieties, forms and cultivars of Conophytum flavum:

• Conophytum flavum
• Conophytum ornatum

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Scientific name:  Conophytum flavum N.E.Br. subsp. flavum (1927)
In Gardener's Chronicle & Agricultural Gazette ser. 3. lxxxi. 32. 1927

Type specimens: Repository The Bolus Herbarium, Botany Department, University of Cape Town, South Africa, BOL13097

Origin:  Little Namaqualand, South Africa

Habitat: Grows on quartz, shale or granite outcrops, often in the crevices of the rock .

Synonyms:

• Conophytum concinnus Schwantes 1927
• Conophytum luteopurpureum N.E.Brown (nomen nudum) Conophytum luteum N.E.Br. 1930
• Conophytum flavum var. luteum (N.E.Br.) Boom 1973
• Conophytum oornatum Lavis 1931
• Conophytum percrassum Schick & Tischer 1931
• Conophytum prospersum N.E.Br. Nomen nudum
• Conophytum tetracarpum Lavis 1934
• Conophytum tictum Lavis 1934

Description: C. flavum is a tiny bluish green succulent plant with golden yellow flowers, these plants are variably caespitose, with single or double bodies, or forming dense mats or cushions. This species is often difficult to distinguish from C. wettsteinii which is indeed a different diploid species with far smoother epidermis and violet blooms.
Body ( leaves): Large, flat, obconic, circular or elliptic in outline viewed from above, usually larger than 15 mm and up to 3.5 cm in diameter truncate, slightly depressed or concave at top, surface smooth, glabrous, light grey-green, bluish-green or whitish-green with some (usually not very numerous) or without darker green spots scattered over the top. It has a small growing cleft that doesn't reach right across the body.
Flowers: Large, 20-25 mm in diameter, daisy-like, yellow pale yellowish and not scented. Petals about 55 in about 2 series, thin, forming an almost star-like, spidery structure. Tube about long as the entire calyx, stamens about as many as the petals, in 2-3 series, all collected together at the mouth of the corolla tube and more or less exserted from it; filaments yellow at the upper part; anthers of the same yellow as the petals. Style 4  mm long nearly as long the stamens, slender, with 4 minute stigmas at the top, yellowish at the upper part, greenish below.
Blooming season:  The flowers open in the morning in bright sunshine, closing at the latter part of the afternoon. Blooms mostly August trough November. 
Fruit: 4-7 locular. Smooth pale brown.
 

Cultivation: C. flavum is easy to grow. These plants grow on winter rain and head for summer dormancy. More or less dormant in summer. The plant requires little water; otherwise its epidermis breaks (resulting in unsightly scars). Water throughout the year although minimally in summer, (only when the plant starts shrivelling), but it will generally grow even in summer if given water.  Water regularly in winter after the previous year's leaves have dried up.  Requires good drainage.  Keep cool and shaded from hot sun in mid-summer; it needs full sun or light shade in the other seasons. Hardy to -2°C. Ensure a very good ventilation. Avoid to repot frequently. This plant may stay in the same pot for many years. Plants grown in larger containers have frequently relatively poor flowers. It might improve when the plants are given their own, small individual pots.

Propagation: It can be reproduced both by cuttings and seeds. Take the cutting from a grown-up mother plant. Each cutting must contain one or more heads, along with a fraction of root.

All the information and photos in cactus art files are now available also in the new the Encyclopaedia of Succulents. We hope you find this new site informative and useful.