When you bought your first succulent, you likely purchased it because it resembled a miniature version of a cactus that wouldn’t die. You put it on a shelf and watched it sit there for three months, seemingly in perfect shape…until one Tuesday, it fall over all mushy and dead. If you’re wondering why: No, you didn’t fail. Succulents comes from very different parts of the plant world. The mystery isn’t that you didn’t know what kind you had, but rather that you thought a stonecrop was like a spiny desert plant. They look somewhat similar, but botanically they has nothing in common. This is why succulent’s family tree matters more for how you treat it than for what you call it.
Looking at a visual chart of these water-storing creatures, how they really group up by botanical lineage instead of by similar silhouette; we see that succulent-ness are not one big family; it’s simply a survival trait. All those fat-leaves aren’t necessarily related; in fact the chart explain that an Aloe and an Echeveria are distantly linked relatives: separated from each other by geography and evolution. Knowing the difference make a big difference when potting, feeding and watering them, too. Knowing the plant family also means you won’t be surprised by toxic sap or use the wrong watering schedule.
Why Plant Families Matter for Succulents
Take the cactus family, for example. Areoles (the small fuzzy spots where the spines emerge) is a characteristic of cacti. True cacti belongs to the family Cactaceae. No areoles? It is not a cactus. It is more probable a Euphorbia, or Spurge family plant. And that’s important, since many Euphorbia species has milky sap inside them that can burns your hands or other exposed body parts. The chart makes that point well. It points out that although both may be fleshy-stemmed plants that hold water, their safe handling and growing conditions differs dramatically. You don’t want to treat a spurge as if it were a cactus, or vice versa; and find yourself on the wrong end of a burning sensation, literally.
And then there are the rosette former. That’s where Crassulaceae, the main group on a nursery shelf, comes into play. This is the family of succulent plants such as Sedum and Echeveria. These plant hold water in their fleshy leaves and typically goes dormant in summer or winter (depending upon species). Then consider the Aloe family, Asphodelaceae. They also form rosettes. However, the leaves of aloes are filled with gel. Aloes also come from various parts of Arabia and Africa. It doesn’t take much looking to see that just because something looks alike doesn’t mean it likes what you like. What is too wet and cold for an Echeveria to tolerate may be just fine for an Aloe.
It also highlights some of the trickier look-alikes. For instance, Living stones (Lithops) in the Aizoaceae family are frequently mistaken for other windowed succulents. They’re realy winter growers, requiring minimal watering when dormant in summer. Feed them like regular summer growers and you’ll rot them out. About thirty-eight percent of all nursery succulent are Crassulaceae, says the chart; it’s just that they’re forgiving of a beginner mistake, and easy to propagate. That easy-care reputation is a liability, though, once your collection starts to grow.
Before you copy general cactus care on all those fat leaves, take a moment to sort them based off their families. Are they really cacti? Do they have areoles? Is it a spurge because there’s milky sap? How do their flowers look? Milky cyathia flowers indicates one group, while composite heads indicates another. That will take the guessing out of it, and that’s the way with learning plant families; less “oh, I forgot which species of such-and-such” than “yes! Now I recognize this pattern and remember how it grows and what it needs.”
Knowing the family means knowing its light intensity requirements, its preferred level of soil drainage, and yes: even its rhythm of dormancy. You should of known that earlier. But in the end it all just comes down to not thinking of succulents as some single mass but individual livivng things that behave differently. That’s what the chart is all about, getting us closer to knowing them, not simply shopping for them because of their cute shapes.
Next time your mushy succulent collapses, you’ll know exactly what family characteristic got overlooked. You’ll also be more likely to help the next one go from a store purchase to a long-term companion.