Crassula perforata

About Crassula perforata

The leaves are born fused in pairs around the stem, and each pair comes out turned against the one below. The effect is of a stem running straight through a spiral stack of triangular leaves — hence perforata, and hence the common name string of buttons.

The edges take on pink and red when it gets direct sun, and go back to grey-green if you move it into shade. It is an honest indicator: if your plant is green all over, it needs more light.

It starts upright and eventually flops and trails under its own weight, so it works as well in a table pot as in a hanging one. It is among the easiest succulents of all: it grows fast, branches on its own, and any piece that falls off makes a new plant.

Botanical fact sheet

Care

It is one of the few on this list that forgives. Water when the substrate is bone dry, every 10-15 days in summer and almost never in winter. If it wrinkles, it is thirsty; if it goes soft and translucent, it has had too much water.

Over the years the stem goes bare at the bottom and the plant loses its shape. That is not a problem: cut the tip off, let the cut dry for a couple of days and replant it. It roots in two weeks and you get a compact plant back.

Did you know?

This arrangement of fused, rotated leaves is not decorative: each pair covers the gap left by the one below, so the plant catches light from any angle without any leaf shading another. It is the same geometric solution pine cones and sunflowers use, worked out two leaves at a time.