Hello Everyone, I have been growing this plant for about 3 months now and still have no idea what it is.A collegue gave me a cutting and little plants started growing from it. It was called a "Japanese lucky tree" but I don't know what that means. It appears to be a succulent of some sort. Can you help. Cheers, Peter
It is one of the plants called mother-of-thousands. It must be one of the species in the section Bryophyllum, which propagate by vivipary. Peter wrote that little plants grew from his cutting and you can see one of the babies in the first photo. Honestly, I don't know all these species and they look quite similar. The care will be basically the same for all of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalanchoe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryophyllum This plant is one of the most common ID requests on the forums. There are several in my office, covered with babies. After Judy Newton retired from her position as education coordinator here, two years ago, I helped Daniel prepare her old office to be his new office. The office had been vacant for around a month. I found one of the withered babies on the floor at the edge below the window where it had been missed by the vacuum. I wrapped it in a moist paper towel and now there are dozens of plants in offices here at the garden. Not a beauty, but they don't need much care and are fascinating to see how they form the plantlets. A great plant for kids (somewhat toxic, make sure they don't eat them.) These plants can be invasive problems in Florida and probably other areas with a similar climate.
Yes, we have a patch of them at the local beach park. There were more before the 2004 hurricanes washed away much of the foredune. As invasives go, they aren't a really serious problem.
