Flowering lithops

Hers is a shot of flowering lithops, or stone plants, which shows why the plants are easier to find in the wild in southern Africa when they are flowering. The plant bodies blend in with the stoney ground on which they grow, and often become shrivelled in dry conditions and covered with wind-blown dust and gravel.

I have been keeping an eye on this plant for a week or more now, and took some shots of the flowers a few days ago. There were too contrasty, though, so I tried the fill flash again today. This plant is awkward because it is growing as a mound rather than as a flat clump. Also, the flowers have come out two at a time, and somehow they haven't arranged themselves exactly photogenically. The two in the lower part of the image came out first, and are bigger than the other two. Each night, the flowers close up, then open in the afternoon. They grow a little bigger each day. The older ones are now getting a little straggly looking. There is a new bud emerging from a body lower left of centre in the picture.

Each Lithops species has a distinctive coloured flower. They are either yellow, white, or like the ones here, yellow with a white centre.