Monanthes pallens - (Webb) Christ
Belongs to the famous genus with those small rosettes nearly impossible
to spot them in dry period.
On our Island of Tenerife we can find about 14 species with their
several var. or formas.
For the amateur with lack of space in his greenhouse it are
the ideal species to collect.
Let us start with one of the most representative of this
genus the Monanthes pallens who is an unbranched rosette plant . Roots fibrous,
stem simple, erect and fleshy, very short, in older plants cylindrical, bare,
bearing at its apex a dense leaf rosette which is convex or flat and in
cultivations and in shade sometimes slightly concave 1/5.5cm diam. Leaves
rhomboidal-spathulate and thick above, very attenuate below. Flowering shoots
lateral, from the axils of outer older leaves, about 3/5cm long, simple and usually
leafy in lower part, much branched above, with few small bracts. Buds globular.
Flowers 6/7 parted, petals linear-oblanceolate yellowish, 3/4mm diam, slightly
bad smell .
Flowering from end of March until end of June.
His habitat arid barranco's in rock crevices mostly in vertical
position between 150 and 900m , forming dense groups of individual plants. Endemic
to the Islands of Tenerife (Masca and the Teno mountains, Santiago del Teide,
Tamaimo etc..) and La Gomera (Vallehermoso) , Bramwell pretends it should grow
also on the island of El Hierro.
look in the left upper corner a lizard : Galotia galotii (fem.)
with a Greenovia dodrentalis
Monanthes
pallens var. silensis - (Praeger)
Svent
As the Monanthes pallens is very variable long time this
species was not recognised, not as species not as fa or variety.
Some books consider this plant as a real species other (as I
do) keep it as a variety. It is a fact that the var. silensis, in some cases,
can really be very close to the species
M. pallens. The last has a fusiform root system
the var. silensis ( or should I really say the species) is tap rooted.
The two can be found in the same region, Teno and Roque del
Conde in the South.
The rosettes are much smaller the by M. pallens, glaucous and
convex, resembling those of the M. polyphylla. Leaves densely imbricated.
Inflorescence usually leafy on the base. When a number of
this variety grow close together the resemblance to M polyphylla is
disconcerting, but on close examination we can find that they are all growing
on own roots and are completely separated the one from the other.
Monanthes pallens var silensis & Aeonium canariense
Monanthes pallens var silensis
Monanthes pallens var silensis
Monanthes pallens var silensis fa cristata
Monanthes pallens var silensis
Monanthes pallens var silensis
Monanthes pallens var silensis
Monanthes polyphylla
Monanthes
pallens var. silensis fa ramosa - Praeger
Rosette bearing, in addition to the axillary flowering
shoots, multiple axillary branches terminating in perennial leaf rosettes.
These secondary leaf rosettes bear normal axillary flowering shoots.
Habitat : Tenerife, Barranco Juan Lopez and Roque del Conde
