Scientific Name
Polycarpaea nivea (Aiton) Webb
Common Names
Common White Saladillo
Synonyms
Achyranthes nivea (basionym), Hagaea gnaphalodes, Illecebrum gnaphalodes, Lahaya gnaphalioides, Mollia gnaphalodes, Polycarpaea gnaphalodes, Polycarpaea microphylla
Scientific Classification
Family: Caryophyllaceae
Genus: Polycarpaea
Description
Polycarpaea nivea is a woody, dense, cushion forming, subshrub. The leaves are small, strongly succulent, silvery or more rarely brownish tomentose with acute to rounded apices. The specific name “nivea” comes from the Latin that means white like the snow, alluding to the color of the plant.
Photo via ville-ge.ch
Hardiness
USDA hardiness zone 8a to 10b: from 10 °F (−12.2 °C) to 40 °F (+4.4 °C).
How to Grow and Care
It is a coastal xerophyte, growing in extremely arid to arid areas of several islands, typically on more or less compacted sand dunes close to the sea but also in coastal cliffs and stony coastal plains. It is also found in sub-humid to humid mountain areas. In the Canary Islands it forms psammophyte communities with Convolvulus caput-medusae and Heliotropium bacciferum ssp. erosum, Zygophyllum fontanesii and Euphorbia paralias.
It is a low-growing, grey hairy plant seldom seen in cultivation. It has been used extensively and successfully in the sand-binding experiments on the sand dunes… – See more at: How to Grow and Care for Polycarpaea nivea
Origin
It is found in dunes and rocks in Mauritania, Morocco, the Canary Islands and Cape Verde.
Links
- Back to genus Polycarpaea
- Succulentopedia: Browse succulents by Scientific Name, Common Name, Genus, Family, USDA Hardiness Zone, Origin, or cacti by Genus
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