Crassula tillaea
A minute annual succulent, only a few centimetres tall, that carpets bare sandy or gravelly ground in winter and spring. It starts green and turns orange and then deep red as it matures. It completes its life cycle before the summer drought and survives the summer as seed. It is native to the Mediterranean and Atlantic Europe and has naturalised elsewhere, including California.
Where it grows wild
Open, bare, sandy or gravelly ground with little competition: heaths, sandy tracks, campsites and paths, rock outcrops, and seasonally damp hollows. California labels mention openings in chaparral and coastal sage scrub, seasonal seeps with shallow soil, and vernal-pool swales. The ground is moist in winter and dry in summer.
Mostly lowland, from near sea level to a few hundred metres. Labelled records mostly give about 50–550 m.
🔒 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 tillaea? 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 Public domain licence, unmodified.