{"id":3425,"date":"2025-12-04T07:35:44","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T13:35:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/?p=3425"},"modified":"2025-12-04T07:35:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T13:35:44","slug":"diamorpha-smallii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/diamorpha-smallii\/","title":{"rendered":"Diamorpha smallii"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><sup><span style=\"color: #333333;\">(Photograph =\u00a0<em>Diamorpha smallii by Paul Adanick)<\/em><\/span><\/sup><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;\">Article by Paul Adanick<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Introduction<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;\"><em>Diamorpha smallii<\/em>, also known as Elf Orpine, is an endemic of the Granitic outcrops of Georgia. A sea of red in an otherwise barren environment secures <em>Diamorpha\u2019s<\/em> position as the harbinger of very early spring. Sometimes it grows with Opuntia species.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The Details<\/span><\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;\"><em>Diamorpha smallii <\/em>Britton ex Small 1903 is a tiny succulent and member of the Stonecrop family (Crassulaceae). A winter annual, it becomes active in late fall and winter producing a spurt of bright red vegetative growth by March. A profusion of white blooms then appears and the plant sets seed and dies in late April. Skeletonized stalks and seed heads are the only traces left through the summer months.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333333; font-size: 12pt;\"><em>Diamorpha<\/em> grows in the thin soils of the solution pits or other slight depressions in the otherwise bare rock surfaces. The plant\u2019s red coloration helps reflect light in these harsh solar conditions. Usable soil is sometimes less than one centimeter in depth, but the succulent leaves hold enough water from these shallow soils or seasonal pools to ensure survival even when the soil dries out.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_3428\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3428\" style=\"width: 1200px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-3428 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Diamorpha-smallii-paul-adanick.jpg\" alt=\"Diamorpha smallii, Douglas County, GA, Paul Adanick\" width=\"1200\" height=\"800\" srcset=\"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Diamorpha-smallii-paul-adanick.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Diamorpha-smallii-paul-adanick-400x267.jpg 400w, https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Diamorpha-smallii-paul-adanick-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/Diamorpha-smallii-paul-adanick-500x333.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-3428\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Diamorpha smallii, Douglas County, GA, Paul Adanick<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Photograph =\u00a0Diamorpha smallii by Paul Adanick) Article by Paul Adanick Introduction Diamorpha smallii, also known as Elf Orpine, is an endemic of the Granitic outcrops of Georgia. A sea of red in an otherwise barren environment secures Diamorpha\u2019s position as the harbinger of very early spring. Sometimes it grows with Opuntia species.\u00a0 The Details Diamorpha [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3429,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-3425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-succulents","tag-flowers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/elf-orphine-paul-adanick.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3425"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6767,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions\/6767"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}