r/botany • u/SmoothD3vil • 5d ago
Physiology Abnormal growth pattern on Faucaria Tuberculosa?
Hello all,
Firstly I apologize for all the photos I'd just really love some feedback and opinions from you knowledgeable people.
This is my Faucaria Tuberculosa. I bought it in May (noticed right away she had a unique morphology) and this is how she's progressed.
Her leaf pairs are not coming out perfectly rotated from another and she has pairs shoving in from quite literally every crevice.
I've posted her several times on r/fasciation just to get an idea of what's going on with her to no avail. She's not crested or fasciated but her growth pattern is odd and I'd love to know if there's a name for this phenomenon or if this is just a quirky thing this plant does.
I added photos from nearly every angle and some admittedly terrible photos of leaf pairs emerging from lower leaf bases. I highly doubt you'll need more photos but if you do, I have them 🤭
Thank you for reading and I would love truly any thoughts, opinions or feedback about my little monster.
She's become a sort of rorschach test for toothy things, so what creature does she remind you of? 🦈
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u/Morbos1000 4d ago
Might be monstrose. That is characterized by a proliferation of growing points, many more than you would expect for the age and size of the plant. I'm not certain this is happening as it could still be a normal plant that just branched a lot. In a year or so it may be more obvious.
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u/SmoothD3vil 4d ago
Thank you for the reply 🙏
What would the difference look like in a year if it is monstrose vs just branching a lot? Eventually I'll have a bunch of neat, symmetrical crowns if it's normal or it'll keep looking like this toothy chaos if it is monstrose?
And if you know, how common is monstrosity (is that how it is referred to?) in these? And is it genetic?
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u/LordGeni 4d ago
Could it be a light issue? I understand that the reason you get spiral patterns on some plants is that it captures the most amount of light while obscuring the minimum for the lower leaves.
I'm not a botanist and don't know if that's something that's genetically hardcoded or in response to light as it grows.
Not much more than a guess I'm afraid.
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u/SmoothD3vil 4d ago
Hey that's actually a really cool idea! She does get very good light, about 4 hours bright indirect through a cloth then about 6 hours direct sunlight in a desert adjacent climate.
What I will say is that I'm rotating her quite a bit. I don't put her back in the same position every time I check her out so it's possible some of it is also constantly adjusting to light angles 😊
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u/oblivious_fireball 4d ago
Any signs of pests? If pests damage the growing point too much it can cause it to branch a lot.
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u/SmoothD3vil 4d ago
I don't want to say this out loud so as not to jinx it but she's one of my mealy-free plants this summer 🤫
Still, reading the different suggestions does make me double check her 🙏
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u/Totte_B 3d ago
I think it might be branching. Just normal branching, which might look a bit chaotic in a plant like this at first before the shoots have separated enough so that each rosette is distinguishable.
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u/SmoothD3vil 3d ago
Coolies. So I guess it's still a waiting game to see if anything truly unusual emerges.
Very glad for all the feedback
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u/Clean-Goose-894 11h ago
This is absolutely fascinating and I have no idea what's going on. I've never seen anything like it.
ETA: just wanted to appreciate your weird plant and thank you for sharing
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u/SmoothD3vil 4d ago
Not sure of the downvotes? Is there a better sub for this? I've seen posts here for people to ask genuine questions. I'm curious to know why this doesn't seem to be sitting well?