Can the white powder on succulent leaves grow back?

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Images and text: Curator

In the large succulent family there is a group of beautiful succulents - the powdery succulents. But these succulents are rather delicate, and the white powder on their leaves is easily rubbed off!!

To solve the confusion of "can the white powder grow back", succulent enthusiasts did many experiments.

They wiped the white powder off the succulent leaves, and then observed whether the white powder could grow back.

The experiments found that the white powder of some varieties can grow back, some cannot, and some can only partially grow back, with no pattern at all.

After consulting the materials, the curator found: in fact, whether the white powder on succulent leaves can grow back depends on the waxy layer, which is standard equipment when epidermal cells are newly born. For a single epidermal cell, the waxy layer cannot grow back, but for the whole leaf, newly born epidermal cells on the leaf will carry a new waxy layer.

So some new leaves of succulents will carry white powder, and for smaller leaves of powdery succulents, the white powder can also grow back after being wiped off. This is because for small leaves, there are many newly born cells, and each newly born cell carries white powder, so naturally they do not care about the ones wiped off at the beginning. On the contrary, after the white powder is wiped off larger leaves, the white powder brought by newly born cells can no longer make up for the loss, so it looks like it cannot grow back or only partially grows back.

There is also the fact that some succulents have relatively thick powder, such as Saussurea involucrata, Mexican Giant, and some succulents of the genus Dudleya, while some succulents have very thin powder, such as Sedum 'Yatsugashira' and Echeveria pulidonis. In fact, thick powder is not many thick layers of white powder piled up on the leaf, but rather the powder particles themselves are relatively large. The adhesion of the powder on the leaves of thick-powder succulents is very weak, and wind or watering may knock the powder off. The situation for thin-powder succulents is exactly the opposite: the adhesion of the powder is strong, and the powder does not fall off easily. Of course, there are also many succulents whose powder thickness is between thick powder and thin powder; they are not too afraid of watering, but touching them with a hand will definitely leave fingerprints, such as Echeveria runyonii 'Topsy Turvy', Echeveria glauca, and Pachyveria 'Blue Bird'.

The white powder on succulents has two functions: first, it can resist a considerable part of ultraviolet attack, and second, it can effectively reduce water loss from the succulent. So succulents that have lost their powder are more prone to sunburn than succulents that have not lost their powder, and are also more likely to have soft leaves due to water loss. In the same care environment, compared with varieties whose leaf surfaces are covered with a uniform waxy layer rather than white powder (such as Echeveria 'Dondo'), powdery succulents lose water more easily.

Care of powdery succulents:

1. When removing powdery succulents from soil and planting them, try to touch only the outermost leaves with your hands, gently supporting the leaves with your fingers. If you have long curved-tip tweezers, you can also use the tweezers to hold the root system for planting. Wait until the succulent naturally sheds its outermost leaves, and it will show a perfect state.

2. Leaf propagation of powdery succulents: wiping off the white powder on the leaf surface before leaf propagation can noticeably shorten the time for the leaf to produce seedlings. Ps: This is probably because the succulent leaf has lost the protection of the wax, feels more sense of crisis, and so hurries to nurture a little baby. Otherwise, the mother leaf always thinks it has the capital to keep living, and is not very willing to produce seedlings.

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