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by Laurel
(RI)

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I inherited this office plant after a worker left the company and left behind his plant! I don’t know anything about it, and wish I could take better care of it if I knew what it was! It’s some kind of succulent.

It has pretty narrow stems, grow fairly tall upward. Stems are a little fuzzy with hairs and have a greyish color. The leaves are flat, and once large fairly rounded, with a little point at the tip. Early, new leaves are more spade shaped and pointed (see Image 4).
All leaves are also fuzzy (not shiny), so that they appear a lightish green, almost with a grey haze over them. Leaves seem to grow in pairs of two from the stems.

Recently (season is fall but it’s an indoor plant), and for the first time since I’ve had it (several months), the plant has started to grow long-ish, individual hairs. These grow from the stems and are thin and whitish or, for the longest ones, pinkish. See Image 3.

I feel like I’m struggling to get the right balance of moisture for this plant. Watering very lightly 1x per week. But the office “canned air” environment means it’s prtty dry but also very cool here.

Comments for Inherited Office Plant – help!

Dec 13, 2019

Pilea or pepperomia
by: Audie

I would take some cuttings from this plant and start with better lighting. It might be a pepperomia or pilea that has just not had enough light. They both like to grow roots from stems too.


Oct 16, 2015

Weird
by: Jacki

It sounds like you’ve done everything right then so not sure why it’s decided to throw out the aerial roots, unless the original underground roots became too stressed.

I find that propagating a plant to get some young vigorous cuttings helps immensely with these kinds of issues. Just a thought.


Oct 16, 2015

Thanks Jackie!
by: Laurel

Thanks for your response, Jackie! Yes, I’m trying to give this left-behind plant some love, but it sure has been struggling!

I’m curious about the root hairs (that’s what they looked like to me too), and what you say, because they actually ONLY appeared after I recently repotted it!

It was in a much larger pot that seemed too big for it, and the soil would frequently grow yellow mold. So I downsized a little to the current pot. It’s been in there for about 1 month now, and the hairs started about 1 week ago. Do you think I went too small?


Oct 16, 2015

Poor Thing!
by: Jacki

I can see why it got left behind!

Honestly, it’s impossible to tell what species this is – or even the genus because it’s struggling so much. It’s a wonder it’s survived as long as it has. Just goes to show how tenacious they are. This looks to me most like some kind of Crassula, maybe the species multicava, so that would be a place to start.

So, yes, it looks like a succulent. Water it less in winter, more when it’s getting more and longer light. The long hairs you refer to are most likely aerial roots, which indicate that it probably needs to be repotted at some time in the near future.

This is being moved to the Crassula page, so have a look through those visitor questions and see if it looks similar.