Dinteranthus vanzylii grows on the quartz plains south of Pofadder in Bushmanland, Northern Cape, where its striking white bodies make plants indistinguishable from the surrounding quartz pebbles. This mostly summer-rainfall habitat lies near the edge of winter-rainfall Namaqualand but receives little rain in any season. At first glance it is often mistaken for a particularly pale Lithops, yet the smaller seed of Dinteranthus sets the genus apart and makes propagation more difficult. Despite that, we find established plants slightly easier to grow than Lithops, particularly during its cyclical “splitting” period when the old leaf pair parts to reveal a new head, sometimes two, that will take over the year’s growth. This uncanny renewal is a finely tuned adaptation to one of the strangest habitats on earth, where the plant remains hidden for most of the year and shows itself only briefly with a single bright yellow bloom, often larger than the head it came from.
