Another Crassula, this one sits right next to Crassula “Gollum” in the garden. Looking at them side by side it’s clear they are very closely related, I can imagine a single mutation caused the leaves of the Jade Plant to curl back upon themselves, and there we have the “gollum”. Evolution in action.
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Crassula Gollum is a south African native that is popular nurserys. It is a small shrub growing to only 1m tall with thick spongy branches The leaves are tube shaped succulent terminating with a red tipped suction cup like structure at the tips.
The name “Gollum” is in reference to J.R.R Tolkein’s charcter from the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. I’ve also seen them refered to as “Shrek’s ears”, it’s a pretty good description.
They must be pretty hardy, the one in our garden survives well with no watering in a shallow sandy soil bed on top of a sandstone slab. Will regularly gets in behind it and breaks of a branch or two as well.
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Another breakout that has colonized large parts of the front garden. The Pitted Crassula, also know as Cape Province Pygmy Weed is originally from South Africa and is considered by some to be a weed over here. It’s a small ground hugging plant with light green thick succulent leaves. The leaves are covered in small pitts or divots, flowers are white to light pink and look like a 4 pronged star.
Nothing much more to say except this plant’s days in the yard are numberd, on reflection of the time I spend gardening those numbers could be in the 1000’s, but they are still numbered.
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