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You're probably familiar with the bonsai like Crassula ovata (Jade plant), colorful rosettes of Sempervivums (House leeks, Hens and chicks), the flaming Katy (Kalachoe blossfeldiana) with its clusters of bright flowers or the dangling grey burros tails (two species of Sedum and a Sedeveria). These all belong to the diverse, intriguing, generally undemanding but often overlooked family Crassulaceae. Unless you're at sea or in Antarctica or Australia, you're probably not far from some wild ones. If you have a garden or houseplants you probably own some. They're mostly small plants with fleshy leaves and small flowers (usually in clusters) and mostly easy to cultivate (so they tend to hang on where other plants have died and sometimes take over). There are species native to most parts of the world; Scotland, the Alps, Madagascar, North and South America among other places. I've even seen some (of the genus Umbilicus) growing epiphytically on palm trees near the Western Wall in Jerusalem. This family includes the most mass produced pot plant (Kalanchoe blossfeldiana) and the plant with highest number of chromosomes (Graptopetalum macdougalii). Many are strange or attractive in appearance, the geometric dwarf Crassulas or the cabbage like large Echeverias and Adromiscus wouldn't look out of place in a collection of dwarf Messembrianthemums. Often the flowers are a bonus.

Most Crassulaceae are leaf succulents (shrubby or rosette forming or even with rosettes on long stems) but a number have tubers or rhizomes (what succulent collectors refer to as "caudiciforms") while others have fleshy stems (so they're stem succulents or pachycauls). Some grow on mountains, many in deserts and semi deserts, and a number as epiphytes. At least one species (Crassula helmsii) even grows in water! A number are annuals or biennials but most are perennials. What these plants have in common is a very simple flower structure, almost as if they were designed to teach floral anatomy. They have a certain number (usually 5) sepals on the outside of the flower. Working inwards, there are the same number of petals, twice this number (the same number in Crassula and a few others) of stamens, as many carpals as there are sepals, each topped by a separate stigma (a few are missing petals or have male and female flowers, with undeveloped stamens or carpals, on different plants). All these parts are arranged in a very neat way. A few like Crassula mucosa have flowers in the leaf axles but most have

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