Mesembs, and a plant named "Perfectoe"

"Perfectoe" was small, about the size of a chick pea, and pink. Latin: argyroderma testiculare. For the first few months of its life its name was simply: "Perfect." I couldn't believe that something so smooth, pink and clay-like could be alive and growing. I procured it for a mere four dollars from a man in a tan safari outfit, who said he'd carried the seeds in his pocket from Namibia and propagated the seeds in his greenhouse. (It's name officially became Perfectoe after a few months, when it grew about an inch off of the soil and looked almost like a human toe.)

Perfectoe was probably my most loved little mesemb until it shriveled up about a month ago.

Mesembs in general are fascinating plants. They resemble pebbles or stones and rarely grow more than a few inches in a lifetime. Once a year, the slit on the top of the plant widens and a new set of leaves emerges, and the outer leaves shrivel and die. The new leaves grow from the nutrients and moisture of their shriveling predecessors. The mesemb to the left is in the midst of this growing process.

My natural inclination, upon seeing a shriveling i.e. distressed looking plant, is to water the plant. In mesembs' case, this often means certain death. This sounds dramatic, but for a plant lover, it can be. I noticed that Perfectoe was growing a new "pair" of leaves (I put pair in parentheses because what emerges from a mesemb looks more like a singular entity with a slit down the middle, but among botanists, is considered a pair of leaves). The older leaves were shriveling, as I expected, but then the new set of leaves began to shrivel as well. I let this go for about a week, then gave Perfectoe a little water. The plant proceeded to swell slightly over the next day, and then shriveled quickly beyond the point of rescue. Never water a mesemb when new leaves are emerging. I'd heard this numerous times, but thought that this case was an exception.