Kalanchoe pumila, the flower dust plant,
Description
Growing to tall and wide, it is a spreading, dwarf
succulent plant subshrub with arching stems of frosted leaves, and clusters of purple-veined pink flowers in spring. The plant forms dense clusters and sometimes grows
epiphytically. It is completely glabrous and reaches heights of 20 to 30 centimeters. The shoots are erect, heavily branched and creeping.
The often densely packed, fleshy leaves are almost sessile and obovate. The leaf blade, completely covered with very fine, mealy, white wax , is 2 to 4 centimeters long and 1.5 to 2 centimeters wide. Its tip is blunt to almost pointed, the base is wedge-shaped. The purple leaf edge is notched in the upper part.
Inflorescence
The inflorescences are few-flowered
panicles between 2 and 7 centimeters wide which sit on waxy, 6 to 10 millimeter long flower stalks. The green or red-purple
Sepal tube is 0.5 to 1 millimeter long and has triangular to lanceolate, pointed tips that are 3 to 5 millimeters long and 1.5 to 2.6 millimeters wide. The bell-shaped, red to purple or pink corolla tube is 4 to 8.5 millimeters long and has spread out, obovate to elongated tips that are 7 to 10 millimeters long and 3 to 5 millimeters wide. The petals have a tip.
The kidney-shaped anthers are between 0.5 and 0.7 millimeters long. The style is 8 to 10 millimeters, the carpel about 1.5 millimeters long. The marginal nectar scales are rectangular to elongated.
Cultivation
This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.
As the minimum temperature for cultivation is , in
temperateness regions it is grown under glass as a
houseplant.
In its natural habitat, it grows on rocks, at an altitude of about 2000 m.
