Crassula ovata

Detailed description

A large well-branched, compact, rounded, evergreen shrub 1-3 m tall with glossy, dark grey-green, oval, succulent leaves and rounded heads of pink flowers in winter-spring. The stem is stout and gnarled and gives the impression of great age, and its branches are also short and stubby but well-proportioned. Branches are succulent, grey-green in colour. In older specimens the bark peels in horizontal brownish strips. Leaves are 30-90 mm long and 18-40 mm wide, egg-shaped to elliptic, often with a red margin and a somewhat pointed end; in opposite pairs, the one pair arranged at right angles to the next, and they are clustered towards the ends of the branches. The bush is covered in masses of sweetly scented, pretty pale-pink, star-shaped flowers in tight rounded bunches during the winter. The flowers develop into small capsules and each holds many tiny seeds.