Seedlings

One of the signs of a thriving garden is getting volunteer seedlings of your established plants. When your plants are healthy and happy enough to reproduce successfully, you are doing something right. You may not always want these seedlings, or you may not want them where they decide to come up, but the simple fact that they are coming up is a good sign.

I recently found these seedling Dudleyas.

They are in an odd place, up against the north side of the house in a thick layer of decomposed granite. This is an area where I don't really have anything planted. The nearest plant that could be the parent of these seedlings is a Dudleya brittonii that is in a pot. It's about 10 ft. away from where the seedlings appeared. In the photo below you can see the old inflorescences on the parent plant.

My assumption is that the Dudleya seedlings are from the brittonii. I'm glad that the parent plant seems to be happy in its pot, and I'm even more excited that the seeds have found a hospitable spot and are doing well so far.

D. brittonii is from northern Baja. It does not occur naturally in California at all, but it is quite common just a few miles south of the border. If you drive south from Tijuana toward Ensenada you will begin to see them all over the rocky cliffs that line the road. This is still the California Floristic Province so there is a lot in common with San Diego County, but there are also these fascinating differences.