Crassula setulosa
A small, mat-forming rosette Crassula of the summer-rainfall grasslands and rocky mountain slopes of eastern South Africa and Lesotho, with fleshy leaves fringed by fine bristly hairs (the name means 'with small bristles'). It ranges from the Highveld around Pretoria up into the Drakensberg, so it is used to hot, wet summers and dry, cold winters with frost. Five varieties are recognised, and plants from high altitude are noticeably hardier than lowland forms.
Where it grows wild
Rocky places in grassland and mountain bushveld: rock outcrops, ridges, shallow soil over sandstone, quartzite, basalt and dolerite, often wedged in crevices or at the foot of boulders. Herbarium labels cite Mesic Highveld Grassland, Lydenburg Montane Grassland, Gold Reef Mountain Bushveld and Ukhahlamba Basalt Grassland.
GBIF records carry no elevations, but the localities run from roughly 1,200 m on the Pretoria ridges to about 2,800 m or more at Sani Pass in the Drakensberg.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
Grow Crassula setulosa? Add it to a free garden and its full profile opens. Pro opens all 38,374 profiles in the library, plants and fungi.
More Crassula
Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY-SA 3.0 licence, unmodified.