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Succulent, warm-climate perennials with fat, juicy, stemless leaves and airy clusters of small flowers. Many varieties make handsome hanging baskets or edgers for sunny container gardens. But the plants can’t take much moisture and humidity, succumb even to light frost.

With just the right amount of neglect, crassulas grow lustily. Hovering with the watering can and fertilizer, particularly during the period of semidormancy, invites rot and other diseases. Success comes with full, hot sun; a coarse, gritty soil mixture with little organic content; warmth; and sufficient water at the time of active growth and bloom.

The plants are easily grown from seed. Stem- and leaf-cuttings root in dryish sand and full sun. On some species the stems layer themselves wherever they touch soil.

Crassula marginalis – Dark-green leaves, margins densely red-spotted; white flowers. Ideal basket plant.

Crassula perforata – string of buttons, necklace vine – One-inch oval leaves so tight to the graceful dangling stems they seem to be strung on a thread.

Crassula pseudolycopodioides – watch chain, princess pine – At first glance, this is a dead ringer for the fernlike club moss, or walking pine, of Northern woodlands. The well-branched stems are ringed with needlelike, rich green leaves.

Crassula rupestris – bead vine, necklace vine, rosary vine – Strings of oval green leaves with a silvery bloom; clusters of pink flowers, even in semi-shade.

Family: Crassulaceae