Crassulaceae - Genus Aeonium - Aeonium tabuliforme

 

Aeonium tabuliforme (Haw.) Webb. & Berth.

Tenerife endemic

The unique flat, plate like, (mostly) monocarpic species in the genus Aeonium . The rosette is composed of over the 100 leaves which are densely imbricated, glabrous and edges with crowded long soft white cilia. The most resembling is the Madeiran A. glandulosum . As synonym of the A. tabuliforme we know tha A. berthelotianum - Bolle- Bonplandia 1859 and the A. macrolepum - Webb ex Christ . For the first traces of this plant we have to search in the 16 hundreds, Plukenet in 1696 describes it as "Sedum majus Canarinum akaulon pilis ad oras foliorum hispidis argenteo-lucidis fimbriatum, Corozone Celio ab Insulanis dictum" . A lot of discussions followed and the plant has been described under so many different names. It is only in 1819 that Haworth gave the name Sempervivum tabulaeforme who afterwards, after the Sempervivum revision, became Aeonium tabuliforme  by Webb and Berth.

Ho-Yih Liu describes this plant as biennial to perennial. Biennial = means living 2 or 3 years , perennial = means lives many, many years. Up to this day I never have had a plant flowering in his 2nd or 3rd year and no one living longer than 5 years and after flowering the plant dies. So I think we may not consider this plant as biennial nor perennial. 

It is a herbaceous, monocarpic succulent plant (normally simple plant without offsets) with a very flat, saucer like rosette who can reach up to 60cm diam. 

A. tabuliforme is a plant of vertical rocks and in normal condition not forming offsets. Sporadically I found plants with so many offsets and this in only one location, near Icod de los Vinos.

Leaves most closely imbricated, 6 to 16 cm long, 2.5 to 4 cm broad, cuneate and very attenuate below, broadest close to the top, where abruptly they become rounded, often with a small cusp at the apex; pale green , glabrous, edges with long, slender white crowded cilia (+ 1mm long) set on crowded ovoid hyaline papillae. Flowering stem erect, from the rosette, stout, pubescent, 35 up to 75cm high, leafy throughout with scattered small sessile patent rhomboid-ovate pubescent leaves, unbranched in lower half. Inflorescence up to a 35 cm long and broad, ovoid in outline, lax,  of many patent branches; branches sparingly bracteate, dividing near their apex into two to four 6- to 8 flowed branchlets.

 

Habitat : Tenerife endemic , locally abundant on the western and northern side of the island. Masca Vallei , Barranco Juan Lopez , between Teno Bajo and Alto , Barranco de Itobal, El Palmar, Buena Vista del Norte, Los Silos, Tiera del Trigo, Barranco Sibora , Garachico, El Tanque, Icod de los Vinos, Tejina ,  Barranco de la Iglesia (Taganana) , Barranco de Afur, Barranco de Benijo, Chamorga, etc ..


Aeonium tabuliforme - Faro de Anaga
 
Aeonium tabuliforme - Afur
 
Aeonium tabuliforme & Monanthes laxiflora
Afur
 
Aeonium tabuliforme - Chamorga
 
Aeonium tabuliforme - Teno Alto
 
Aeonium tabuliforme & Herman - Afur
 
Aeonium tabuliforme & Alois Debie - Chamorga
 
Aeonium tabuliforme - offsetting
 
Aeonium tabuliforme -
 
Aeonium tabuliforme - +30cm diam
old model mobi is about 22cm
 
Aeonium tabuliforme - ready to flower

Aeonium tabuliforme - ready to flower
 
Aeonium tabuliforme - seeds
 
Aeonium tabuliforme - different locations -
different
 forma !!!