I tend to change the names of people, places and things.

Just ask my students and family.  New names are the norm with the FLOWER.

So I call this Life Saver plant ( Huernia zebrina) by the name Starfish plant.  Which is NOT its correct name.

This is not due to senility.

It’s  because this plant reminds me of a starfish story I used to tell my students.

Starfish/Seastars are capable of regeneration. If they lose an arm, they grow a new one.

This is important to know if you are harvesting oysters.

You see starfish eat shellfish.  They use these arms to pull open the shell and stick their stomachs inside to secret acids that dissolve the guts of the victim. Then they slurp up the goo.  Yummy.

Oyster fishermen  in the past tried to kill off the competition by chopping them into pieces.  This only multiplied the problem, because if a piece of the central disc was left on the arms, all those pieces became new starfish.

So the lesson here is to know your enemy.

Okay… back to the plant.

The Life Saver plant likes to drop arms around.

If these land in a neighboring pot, the pieces produce new plants.

So all those arms are a way of reproducing asexually.

So the Life Saver gets called the Starfish at FLOWER’s house.

It’s no surprise that Wingrid loves this plant.  It’s the extra arms she can relate to.

Anybody want some Starfish…I mean Life Saver plant parts?

FLOW