Photo taken on Oct 21, 2014

Titanopsis mimicks its limestone habitat, the Latin name means “looking like^opsis limestone^{греч. titanos [1]}”. Again, it's native to South Africa (Bushmanland, Upper Karoo), can withstand crazy heat in summer and freezing below zero at winter, but, unlike Lithops, it blooms in late autumn or winter.

The diameter of the “bush” is ~5-6 cm. While admiring blooming Titanopsis and Fenestraria (see below), I got curious: are there bees tough enough to pollinate flowers in winter among dry cold rocks? I haven't found exact information about pollinators of these genera; research tells that their motherland has enough tough bees, tough monkey beetles as well as other tough insect pollinators. These plants never invest their extremely scarce resources into self-pollination.

[1]Did you think at first that «titano-» could be from Greek mythological Titans? Or from titanium? I was surprised, too. I found a possible explanation of the link between giant Titans and limestone in a book about Dyonisian mysteries, but I will not retell that here — it's long and off-topic.

species Concrete leaf living stone, jewel weed Titanopsis calcarea