Haworthia

Cushion haworthia is a tiny, choice, clump-forming succulent whose plump, soft, blue-green leaves end in translucent "windows" — in the wild the plant pulls itself down into the soil and lets light reach its inner tissues through these clear leaf tips, an adaptation to the bright, dry Karoo light. POWO (Kew) places it native to the Eastern Cape of South Africa (Cape Provinces). It is a jewel for a pot or a windowsill rather than a garden plant. Unusually for this group of succulents, it prefers BRIGHT INDIRECT light or part shade rather than harsh full sun, which scorches and reddens it; give it sharp drainage and water sparingly during growth, far less in winter. OVERWATERING — and cold, wet soil — is the main way it dies, and it is FROST-TENDER (RHS rates it tender, H1c-H2), so almost everywhere it is grown as a houseplant or in a frost-free greenhouse. It is grown for its jewel-like translucent foliage, not as a food plant, and it rarely flowers in cultivation.

Zebra haworthia (trade name Haworthia fasciata; now correctly Haworthiopsis fasciata) is a tiny, rosette-forming succulent endemic to the Eastern Cape of South Africa, where it grows in acidic fynbos sands near Port Elizabeth and Uitenhage — listed Near Threatened on the SANBI Red List. It is one of the most widely sold succulents in the world: compact, slow-growing, forgiving of low water, and ASPCA-listed non-toxic to pets. The honest catch is twofold: it is frost-tender (barely tolerates a degree or two of frost, USDA zones 9b-11 outdoors), so almost everywhere it is a houseplant or temporary patio pot; and true H. fasciata is genuinely rare in cultivation — most plants sold under this name (and most images, including ours) are actually the closely related H. attenuata, which carries white tubercles on BOTH leaf surfaces rather than the smooth inner surface of the true species.