Common Iceplant

The ‘ice plant’ is cultivated in gardens for its thick glistening foliage and showy flowers which open in sunlight.

Introduced from southern and western Africa, Mesembryanthemum crystallinum is in cultivation as an ornamental. Its use to treat scurvy by sailors, its popularity as an ornamental potted plant aboard ships, and its occurrence in ballast dumps (as in Pennsylvania) were some of the means by which this species has become so widespread throughout the world. Gauchos in Argentina used it to treat venereal disease.

A procumbent annual with a characteristic covering of glistening papil¬lae. Leaves 3-8 cm long, 5-20 mm broad, more or less spathulate, succulent. Flowers solitary, terminal, pinkish red; pedicel up to 11 cm long. Sepals 5, ovate, persistent. Petals linear, up to 2 cm long, longer than the sepals. Outer stamens petaloid staminodes. Capsule star shaped on dehiscing.

Plants annual to biennial. Stems trailing, dichotomously branched, to 1 m. Leaves sessile or petiolate; petiole, ± clasping; blade ovate to spatulate, flat, 2-20 cm, margins undulate. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, cymes; proximal bracts opposite, leaflike; distal bracts alternate, reduced; flowering profusely. Flowers 7-10 mm diam.; hypanthium aging red, round; calyx lobes 5, unequal; petals 20-40, connate into tube, white, aging pink; stamens 30. Capsules coarsely papillate. Seeds 200, rough with minute tubercles. 2n = 18.

Distribution: Native to S. Africa; Greece, Spain, USA, Canary Islands.

introduced; Ariz., Calif., Pa.; Mexico (Baja California); South America; Europe (Mediterranean); Africa; Atlantic Islands; Australia.

Fl. Per.: Feb.-April.

Flowering year-round, mostly spring-fall.

Coastal bluffs, cliffs, ballast dumps, disturbed ground; 0-100m.

Cryophytum crystallinum (Linnaeus) N. E. Brown; Gasoul crystallinum (Linnaeus) Rothmaler