Crassula vaillantii
A tiny annual Crassula, only 2–6 cm tall, of temporarily flooded sandy hollows and rock pools on acid ground, found across southern Europe, North Africa and south to the Cape. It is not a conventional succulent: it germinates in wet ground, grows while the hollow is wet or flooded, flowers pink as the water recedes, sets seed and dies. Growing it means copying that wet-then-dry cycle from seed each year.
Where it grows wild
Damp sands and flat, siliceous rock surfaces with shallow depressions that flood in the wet season and dry out in summer, such as Mediterranean temporary pools and seasonally wet grassland. It forms small loose mats with other ephemeral pool plants and disappears if the site is shaded, enriched or permanently dried.
It is a lowland plant, in France only up to about 300 m. GBIF records with an elevation have a median of about 135 m and reach about 790 m.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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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 2.5 licence, unmodified.