Othonna cacalioides

Othonna cacalioides is a winter-growing caudiciform in the daisy family, found in the Northern and Western Cape of South Africa (Bokkeveld Escarpment to Gifberg) and in southern Namibia. In South Africa its area of occurrence is under 20 km², where it grows only in the shallowest rock pans, with a thin layer of coarse sand, in quartzite pavements of the Table Mountain Sandstone. Habitat degradation, collection and trampling by livestock are threats, and the IUCN Red List category is Vulnerable. The stem is a flattened, potato-like caudex mostly below ground, 9 cm or more across, with glossy pale-brown to dull-orange bark marked by white woolly scars. It may branch into twenty or more short, stumpy heads barely above the soil. In the rainy season it produces spoon-shaped leaves 2–2.5 cm long, and as they die back small yellow daisies appear; through summer and autumn only the bare fleshy stems remain. Plants with one or few heads were once separated as Othonna pygmaea, but this now falls within the variation of this species. Highly sought after by collectors, it is one of the slowest and most difficult Othonna to grow. In Japan it is sold online and by specialist nurseries as a winter-growing caudex.

The Othonna cacalioides grows to A dwarf barely above soil level; caudex 9 cm or more across.

Light feeding in the growing season