Xerophyte

Flowers and Fruits

One or more flowers are produced from the centre of the plant at one time. This deep centre, which is full of hairs that protect the fruit during its development over several months, is where the fruit dries and dehisces and where the new buds expel the fruits and seeds for dispersal.The fruit splits from the base. The very thin wall of the fruit looks like thin, brown translucent paper.

Seeds

The number of seeds produced in each fruit vary from 1 to 7 seeds or occasionally more (up to 25)

Description

Yavia is a small-sized, mostly underground monospecific genus with strongly camouflaged aspect vaguely remembering of Epithelantha micromerisSN|6936]]SN|6936]]. And most of it is a tuberous root!

Roots

Conical, succulent, they are a continuation of the underground stem.

Flowers

Yellow to lime green buds appear in late spring and are followed by beautiful pink flowers (about 20 mm in diameter).

Spines

Small, inconspicuous, at top of the plant 0,3-0,7 mm long, and barely visible without the aid of a magnifying lens. The older spines soon become decrepit, more or less destroyed.

Stem

Single, more rarely with two or more heads, very small; (in habitat a specimen of 25 mm diameter is an extraordinarily fat and old plant). They have a flat top, with a woolly depression in the centre. This superior disk is the only visible part of the plant and the only part receiving the sun’s rays. The lateral part of the stem is almost cylindrical and is rugose. Cultivated plants change dramatically in their aspect and become soon elonged.

Areoles

Ordered in several lines that are not really ribs, just small undulations for which the term tubercles is perhaps too much. In cultivation areoles are whitish and hairy.