Fortunately, most succulent plant families are so distinctive that they are easily recognised. The first step in identifying garden succulents is to become familiar with the main groups (families and genera). Rare succulents are generally well covered in specialist books but the garden succulents are rarely featured as an entity on their own in gardening books. This unfortunately excludes many of the fascinating and rare gems that succulent plant enthusiasts enjoy adding to their greenhouse collections. Writing an identification guide to all the succulents of the world (an estimated 10 000 species) would be a difficult task - there are simply too many to fit into one book! However, the task becomes much easier if we restrict ourselves to those succulents that are commonly grown in gardens. It is therefore no surprise that they also play an important part in gardening and horticulture. This plant life form is distributed over more than 60 different families, but with a significant concentration in about 15 of them.įurthermore, perhaps with the exception of forests, succulents make up a distinct and conspicuous component of many vegetation types, especially in seasonally dry and arid regions. Quick guide to garden succulents of the worldĪbout 3% of the flowering plants of the world are represented by a wealth of succulents of all shapes, sizes and descriptions. Unusual leaf succulents (various families) ![]() ![]() Unusual stem succulents (various families)ĭioscoreaceae (Wild yam family, Elephant's foot family) Mesembryanthemaceae (Ice plant family, Mesemb family) Euphorbiaceae (Spurge family, Milkweed family) Crassulaceae (Stonecrop family, Plakkie family) Agavaceae (Sisal family, Century plant family) Guide to the main succulent plant groups (families) He has a research interest in systematic botany and has written several books on the diversity and uses of plants. He holds the position of Research Director of the South African National Biodiversity Institute and is a professor of Botany at the University of Pretoria.īen-Erik van Wyk is a professor of Botany at the University of Johannesburg. Smith is a well-known authority on succulent plants and an author of several books on the subject. The main section deals with all major succulent plant families, how they can be identified and which main groups (genera and species) belong to each of them.Introductory chapters on the uses, conservation, cultivation and propagation of succulents, together with a section on ‘gardening with succulents’ that gives useful hints.More than 500 excellent full-colour photographs, showing the distinctive shape and colour of the plants.Details about the main succulent plant families that will allow any reader to quickly determine at a glance the family to which a succulent belongs. ![]()
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