Carpobrotus virescens
Carpobrotus virescens, commonly known as coastal pigface, is a prostrate coastal succulent shrub of the family Aizoaceae native to Western Australia. The Noongar peoples know the plant as Kolbogo or Metjarak. Description It is a prostrate plant with stems up to 1.5 metres (5 ft) long. Its leaves are green, from 3.5 to 9 centimetres (1½-3½ in) long, and 9 to 17 millimetres wide. Flowers are from four to six centimetres in diameter, on a pedicel five to 15 millimetres long. They are composed of 250 to 300 stamens, surrounded by petal-like staminodes that are mostly purple, but white at the base. Taxonomy It was first published in 1812 by Adrian Hardy Haworth, who gave it the name Mesembryanthemum virescens. Fourteen years later, Haworth published M. abbreviatum; no specimen was given for this name, and a figure on which the name was based is now lost, but on the basis of an 1848 figure this name has been synonymized with C. virescens. Neotypes were designated for both names by Stanley Thatcher Blake in 1969. The neotype of M. abbreviatum is an illustration from Joseph Salm-Reifferscheid-Dyck's Monogr. Aloes et Mesembryanthemi, while that of M. virescens is a specimen of Blake's (Blake