Strange looking living stone

- Discovery-Dr. Vihari shadow

- Vegetation is full of many wonders. One of those wonders is Pebble Plants. It is called Living Stone

Gu Rudev is a beautiful novel by Rabindranath Tagore. Its title in English is "Hungristo" which means "hungry stones" or hungry stones. Here we are not talking about Hungrystones but about the wonders of nature called "Living Stones". It means living stone. One would be surprised to know that they are really alive because they are not stones but plants. It is called 'Pebble Plant'. It can be called Gujarati 'Golashya Vanaspati' or more simply Panchika Vanaspati. It is a charming creation of nature. It is a disguised plant that looks like a stone. It is a small plant. Its scientific name is 'Massembrianthemacii (Izoacii)'. It is a plant belonging to the genus Messembus pebble, which resembles a quartz sphere. Due to the beauty of the 'Masembs' plant and its exotic shapes, many people have become interested in it. Some of the plants of this genus are named as Lithops, Denteshanthus, Conophytum, Argyroderma. The beauty of it is that such a panchika-like plant exists in nature in a way that is unique to its natural habitat. "

Of all these plants, the genus Lithops is the most insidious and secretive plant. Its common name is Stone Plant, as it seems difficult to distinguish it from pebbles in its natural habitat. Its name is Greek. In Greek, 'lith' means 'stone' and 'ops' means 'appearance'. Lithops were first discovered in AD. Performed by William John Burchill in 1911. He discovered it in South Africa.

He tried to pick up strangely shaped panchikas from the rocky ground there. He saw that the panchika was firmly attached to the ground. He felt that it was not Panchika but to leave. Of course, the name Lithops is not behind it. Botanist Brown Given in 19, lithops can also be called a floral stone. It is called mimicry plant.

The very structure of this plant shows how difficult it is to survive in a harsh environment. The body of this plant is divided into two leaves. This pair of leaves is such that each leaf seems to be full of juicy pulp. The two are fused in the shape of an inverted cone. It can be said that they are connected. It makes him disguise. The crack that appears on the top of the lithops is actually the crack that separates the two leaves. Another advantage is that lithops plants do not have trunks. The prime minister connects directly to the base of the leaves. The leaves are able to store enough water. It retains all the moisture available to it. I.e. accumulates it.

Often its natural habitat is areas where it does not rain for months. So storing water is of major importance to him. The leaves are shortened so that water does not evaporate on the surface of the leaf and its ends are round like Lisa Panchika found in the river Narmada. The head of the plant is a pair of thick leaves filled with succulent pulp. It is at ground level. The leaves get thinner at the edges as they go down from the ground level. It is called Krama Sukshman. It results in small, slender, carrot-like cock roots like a trunk. It also produces external, extra, extracellular roots where there is water. The head size of lithops is five to twenty five millimeters and the size from leaf surface to root tip is 90-100 millimeters. Of course this measurement is based on the age of the plant.

Lithops plants are small. It has a low profile so the effect of climate, intense heat and light can be minimized. Lithops are perennial plants. The markings on the leaves of a single lithop, which develops a new pair of leaves each year, remain the same on the new leaves produced each year, but the markings on the leaves of two different lithops are not exactly the same. During the summer months lithops and wilting can be felt. Lithops when thus dormant is not desired at all.

Lithops begin to grow in the fall (September-November). This process lasts all winter and the process of spring germination is the first sign of growth as the cracks between the leaves begin to separate. During the winter months, the old leaves begin to wither and the new ones grow in size.

It blooms once a year during the rainy season. In between are yellow and white daisy-like flowers. These flowers last for four to five days. These flowers have different shades of white and yellow and have a sweet fragrance. It attracts bees and flies. The old plant withers after it has flowers and seeds. Later it breaks open and a new pair of succulent thick leaves is produced.

Lithops plants often grow in leafy and shady soils away from other vegetation. They have developed two things to adapt to desert life. One is the development of juicy pulp and the other is the synthesis of light. The cone-shaped part of its leaf contains chloroplast cells in the inner layers of its epidermis. As a result, the light of the sun diffuses and its intensity does not remain much. Light first passes through a layer of water stored in the parenchyma and then reaches the chloroplast cells.

The epidermis of the leaves of all species of lithops is tannin. Teniferous cells appear on the 'face' of the leaf. This produces pigmentation of colors in lithops. As a result it gets the most attractive characteristic. It has a soft greenish tinge, a gray background, a bluish tinge and a purple tinge on the brownish Lisa Five-like leaves. This gives the lithops a camouflage cover.

Now let's look at another plant of the same genus called Dintoranius. His name is E.S. Kurt, who was killed between 12 and 13, is lying on the diner. He did a lot of research on it in the desert of Namibia. 'Dinter' is derived from the name of its inventor and 'anthus' means 'full' in Latin. The plant also has succulent pulp leaves which are separated by a deep fissure, its greenish gray surface is smooth or rough, it has spines on it or it has dark green or purple spots. Its leaves are triangular or boat-shaped.

Its flowers are pale yellow or dark yellow in color. Flowers are born on the small stalks which are called inflorescences which grow out of the cracks between its leaves. Flowers on the tropics occur in South Africa from late summer to mid-winter, i.e. from February to July. Fruit clusters form after pollination and fruiting. The seeds are small and have a slightly rough surface. These plants grow between quartz particles and mix with pieces of quartz.

Conophytum also belongs to the same clan. Many species of Conophytum remain invisible because they themselves are translucent, i.e., living under a translucent quartzite roof. The rest do not attract attention due to their small size. However, between the months of April and August (in Western countries that period is called winter) most pebble plants are found. It tends to disappear completely during the summer months as it is a winter rain vegetation.

The leaves are either attached to the base or united in a pea-like appearance. The leaves are either flattened or rounded on the outside. It looks like a sack that encloses with a drawstring. As its leaves wither and turn into a paper-like shell in early summer, it protects the growing leaf pair. Autumn new leaves emerge from the dry remnants of old leaves.

These tiny leaves can range in size from one-eighth to one-and-a-half inches wide. It shows different color shades and shapes. Daisy-like flowers have sprouted from the small cracks between the new leaves. It can be white, yellow, orange, pink or purple. Cornophytum minitum is two and a half centimeters high and ten centimeters wide. Its dotted sprouted green leaves grow into ball-shaped mounds. It takes 20 years for this very slowly growing species to fill a pond of seven and a half centimeters.

One more type of pebble plant is this. The leaves are silvery white to gray in color. Finding them among the quartz of white quartz is hard work. The fusion of two leaves forms a cylindrical body. The largest diameter of this cylinder is at the top. These cylinders are narrow from top to bottom. One flower grows in the gap between the leaf pairs. The flowers are composed of many round, narrow shiny purple pink petals. Its fruit is called capsule. These clusters ripen in the spring and release seeds in the rainy season. The raindrops falling on the capsule are adapted to the ecology that motivates the seed. It uses the energy of raindrops falling from the plant to scatter the seed.

Thus these living stones are a strange creation of nature. But today we are harming its ecosystem. Excessive grazing in grazing lands, mining for minerals, pollution, and human encroachment on the land they inhabit pose a risk to the area where such plants grow.