Deborah Chen's Photography: Succulents

Hello guys!

You should know that I like succulents because they're so pretty and easy to take care of. Sorry for not uploading a botany-related post earlier this year. I guess junior year really got busy. :P

But now that APs are over, I have the opportunity to finish it. And I realize my photography teacher, Mr. Farley, gave everyone a project to post at least five pictures about a topic. Well, my topic is succulents.

I hope you learn something new from this post and that you appreciated nature. I mean, look at that symmetry and and color. I don't think that can happen by chance, DNA, or environmental pressure (cough cough evolution), but by God's vision and power. Amazing isn't it? Since I'm almost done with AP Biology, maybe I throw in an explanation of how succulent conduct photosynthesis?

Enjoy!

A brief overview for succulents.

Most of them are drought tolerant, grow slowly, and self-propagate. To remove the buds of the succulent, have a knife to cut at their bases as close to the place with where it self-propagates. Then let them dry itself for one day to heal their wounds. Drying them prevents the cut portion of the plant from rotting, so also \don't over water them. They prefer to be in well-drain soil. Some recommend the soil should consist of 2 parts sand, 1 part loam and 1 part peat moss with a little gravel. Succulents are also called CAM plants or Crassulacean Acid Metabolism plants. In order to conserve water CAM plants close their stomata in the day and open their stomata in the night and let oxygen diffuse out and carbon dioxide diffuse in. By doing so reducing water loss since when the stomata is open, water vapor also diffuses out. However, by closing the stomata there isn't sufficient carbon dioxide inside the plant unless there's another kind of carbon fixation. In the night, carbons dioxide enters the plant and with the RuBiCO enzyme is converted to a four carbon compound called malate, which is later stored in the vacuoles of the plant. In the day, malate is then converted to carbon dioxide allowing photosynthesis to occur.

Common names: Zebra Haworthia, Zebra Cactus
Scientific name: Haworthia fasciata (? the species name is unclear)
Commonly founded in America, especially in the West Coast, and other countries in Africa like Swaziland, Mozambique, and Nambia ( native in South Africa)
Perennial succulent, has white stripes on the leaves resembling the stripes of a zebra. Some may even say it's an aloe plant.
Takes a few weeks to germinate and even grow a flower stalk ( flowers' colors are pink-yellow)
Prefer to be in mixed shade and direct light, Little watering (once per two weeks),

Common names: Jade bush, Money plant, Friendship tree, Lucky Plant
Scientific name: Crassula ovalta
Commonly found in ...the world like China and America
Perennial succulent, evergreen with smooth jaded colored leaves and small white, pink leaves. The leaves may turn red, yellow at the tip when they are exposure to intense light.
Plant whenever. It also grows well in the summer, fall, winter, and spring. But if you want to see some flowers, I recommend sometime late summer, close to fall. The flowers can bloom around late winter and early spring.
Prefer in in sunny if you want to see the plant grow some flowers.
Beneficial to bees and cats?

(My cats love to hide behind them and one time one of them tried to jump out of the bush like a ninja. But the jump was awkward because my cat jump from a bendy branch and it rebound.)

Common names: Mexican Snowball, White Rose, Blue Rose, Echeveria Peacocky, 石蓮花
Scientific name: Echeveria Peacockii (it's also called "hens and chicks" plant because it has little babies underneath)
Commonly found in subtropical areas like South California and temperate areas. (native in Mexico, U.S, and South America. The name is self-explanatory)
Perennial succulent, the colors are usually light green with a white coating. The white coating actually White Mold aka mildew. It's not very dangerous at first, but do treat it with an organic fungicide. If one of the leaves is deformed, damaged, and turning from light green to yellow, they are signs of a mildew infection. Don't leave water droplet in the petals for it can promote fungal growth and remove the dead leaves underneath.
Plant in summer, spring, and fall. Winter is okay, but water less in the winter.
Prefer to be in partially sunny/shady area

Common names: Echeveria Green Velvet, Red Velvet
Scientific name: Echeveria harmsii or pulvinata
Commonly found in (native in Mexico)
Perennial plant, has fuzzy green leaves with a red tinge at the tip. Depending on the light, the leaves can have a whitish coating, which is not mildew powder. Because the leaves has "hairs" or epidermis projections to prevent water loss, the plant has a fuzzy feeling.
Plant anytime. It's really easy to replant its small babies but takes them a very long time for them to grow.
Prefer to be in a well-ventilated area. Also avoid planting it with blueish Echeveria like the rose one in the previous picture.

An excellent guide for Echeveria

Common names:Tree aeonium, Zinnia, Irish Rose, Tree Housesleek
Scientific name: Aeonium arboreum
Commonly found around the world in the temperate zones (native to Canary Islands)
Biannual plant (?), the colors ranged from green to red, purple. If the plant receives a lot of water and sun, the leaves are green. If the plant receives little water and sunlight, the leaves will turn purple red. Usually in the second year, the plant grows a tall, elegant flower part with yellow flowers spiraling around the plant. Then it dies later on. (so I advised to plant the self-propagate in the soil usually in the late winter or early spring)
Prefer in sunny to light shady areas. If it's grown in a cool area, place it in a sunny area. If it's grown inland and in warm area, place it in a light shady area.

Common names: Aloe, Chinese Aloe, Indian Aloe, True Aloe, Barabados Aloe, Burn Aloe, First Aid Plant
Scientific name: Aloe vera
Commonly found around the world (native somewhere in the Middle East like Egypt, Morocco, Mauritania, etc.)
Perennial succulent, has green long leaves with white spots dashed around it and tiny spikes around the edges. Again the white powder on it is mildew. When the conditions are right, the plant would grow a flowering stalk and have yellow tubular flowers.
Prefer to be in a bright, sunny area.
Resistant to most bugs (expect those like spider mites and aphids), not tolerant to heavy frost or snow

Common names: Spider Aloe, Blue dwarf aloe, Dwarf hedge-hog Aloe
Scientific name: a hybrid between Aloe humilis (humilis means low-growing) and Aloe nobilis
Commonly found in the world (native in South Africa, like Western cape and Eastern cape)
Perennial plant, has triangular green leaves branching out from the middle and has thorns on the edges (they are spiky). When it's time to flower, usually in the summer time, they have a tall brown flower stalk with orange tubular flowers.
Prefer to not be not water as frequently. Also if you do plant it in the ground, it will and spread around the area and be difficult to remove.
Beneficial to hummingbirds and other pollinators.

Medical properties of Aloe

Aloes are renowned for their medical properties, agar gel, and use for flavoring ice cream. It makes latex(found as yellow substance under the plant's skin. and gel (the gel like substance inside). It has been used for medical purposes for over 5,000 years, earning the name "vera" or in Latin "true". However, some aloes are toxic so don't just random take a bit of its leaves. These ones up here..I don't know. Why would I eat them?

Anyway, most people use aloes for topic uses like sunburns, cold sores, psoriasis and cuts and other things. Some studies have shown that aloe penetrates the three skin layers: epidermis, dermis , and subcutaneous tissue, with nutrients and vitamins, which may prevent cell-aging. However there is a debate on whether or not aloe speeds up, delays ,or does not heal a wound. Many say they help heal the wounds, claiming using aloe can heal a wound faster than regular dressing. One of the famous studies is conducted by Japan's top universities including Hoshi in post-WW2. Some Japanese people who applied aloe on their wounds after the atomic bomb dropped healed quicker than a group that didn't. It turns out that aloe has antioxidant that fights the radicals produce by radiation and aid the immune system. Other times, it's taken orally and used for osteoarthritis, fever, itching, asthma, constipation and such. Some studies show that ingesting aloe increase bio-availability (absorption of nutrients), aids digestion, and provide the immune system with effective antioxidants. Still it's best to not eat the aloe in high doses or it may lead to kidney failure. This also lead the FDA to order stores to remove over-the-counter latex products containing aloe, because more and more people are becoming "tolerant" to latex which means they have been exposure to a lot of latex.

Original Pictures (with Camera Raw edits)

I cropped the image, increase contrast and exposure.

I cropped the image to the right, increase the saturation and the contrast for both of them. Amazingly the focus, exposure time and ISO levels are the same.

f/3.9

1/30 sec

ISO-125