Can you identify this plant?
January 30, 2014 7:36 AM   Subscribe

I received several plants from a friend of mine to start my indoor garden. Neither of us knows what type of plant this is, despite hours of trawling gardening websites. Photo.

Bonus points if you can tell me if it is poisonous to humans/dogs/cats/rabbits. Or if it will sprout a type of evil berry that can be used in a concoction to summon a demon to sweep up all this animal hair (unrelated).
posted by burnfirewalls to Home & Garden (5 answers total)
 
It definitely looks like some type of succulent. Does your friend know if it has ever sprouted baby plants along its leaves? It looks a bit like Kalanchoe daigremontiana (Mother-of-millions) but looking at google images there are lots of varieties.
posted by brilliantine at 7:59 AM on January 30, 2014


Yes, that looks just like the mother-of-thousands that we were given by a friend! Finding a picture of that exact variety isn't easy but I got better results looking for "mother of thousands" than "mother of millions". Wikipedia suggests it's poisonous and I can tell you from personal experience that it does not do well if you put it on a shelf in a sunny room and then forget about it for three or four months.
posted by SeedStitch at 8:06 AM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


I've had some luck (with some time investment in learning plant identification nomenclature) using this site to identify succulents: www.succulentguide.com

Go to "Advanced Search" and check the boxes that describe the habits of your plant. You may have a hard time unless you know when it blooms and what the flowers look like.

All I can say is that you've got some kind of succulent there.
posted by General Tonic at 8:11 AM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


I think, after looking at the undersides of the leaves in your photo, that it's a mother-of-thousands. I think the current style is to call it Bryophyllum daigremontianum. It's just not doing that well, I think...

And yes, poisonous to your animals... :(
posted by gemmy at 8:35 AM on January 30, 2014


Response by poster: Identified! Kalanchoe daigremontiana!

Thanks for the help! I had found the Kalanchoe family in my searching but given that I don't know much about the plant kingdom, I couldn't figure out if this was a variant or a totally different species.

And I had to get rid of it because of the kitties. They can frolic amongst the remaining spider plants.
posted by burnfirewalls at 9:34 AM on January 30, 2014


« Older I need help hacking a travel-friendly rod for...   |   Playlist help: Jazz edition. Fast and bass-y! Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.