Mesembryanthemum crystallinum or ice plant

Plant of the day is: Mesembryanthemum crystallinum or ice plant

Fun stuff:  This plant contains so much water that it is often planted around houses in California to protect against wildfires.  Apparently it is almost impossible to burn..  Also, notice the little bladders on the stem above, pretty neat right?

Sad stuff:  It is considered an invasive weed in California...smooth move.  Also widespread in Australia.

Taxonomy:  The next 'A' list species on my quest brings me to Aizoaceae often described as the fig-marigold family or ice plant family.  This is a family of mostly arid climate plants, about 96% of them are endemic to arid or semi arid parts of Africa.  They are generally pretty famous for having flowers that persist for quite some time.  The flowers are usually perfect (male and female organs) and lack true petals.  The sepals are often fused in a bit of a cone.  There is quite a bit of variability in the flower structure really and some look almost like daisies.  The flowers of this family are often quite spectacular and as I've been looking through these I've thoroughly enjoyed the colors...Doreanthus is another great genus here to check out!  Good PotD for my next trip around.

Edible:  Yep, leaves are edible, high water content.  Probably a great find out in a dry place if you need it.  One definitely worth knowing for those in southwestern California and parts of Arizona.  You'll actually be removing a weed while doing it.  Win.  (P.S.  don't eat anything you haven't 100% identified ...don't be a moron clause).

Crystals:  If you don't look at the pictures here on Wiki you are a chump, they are fantastic and give you a little insight into why the species is crystallinum.

Flowers and entymology:  So this particular species closes its flowers up at night to protect its gametes/organs/naughty bits/what-have-you  and opens in the day time.  Because of this, when the species was first named back in 1684 by Jacob Breyne, the greek roots of Mesembrianthemum (the genus) meant "noon flower."  Later on it was discovered that there were indeed night flowering species and the name was changed to Mesembryanthemum or "middle fruit"  ...middle/noon kinda the same thing as you can see.  Silly that one vowel changes the meaning that much but whatever.

The nerd find:  I try to find at least a few things off the beaten Wiki path for anyone that actually makes it this far.  This one is a sweet find.  Depending on the moisture availability, this plant will switch from a C3 to CAM photosynthetic pathway.  This is pretty damned amazing from an evolutionary standpoint...that kind of energetic elegance is truly amazing...crazy stuff.  Also, the plant tends to accumulate salt, when the plant dies that salt is leached out into the soil...creating an environment suitable for itself, while decreasing competition from other plants that cannot germinate in more saline soils.  Because of the tough nature of this plant, it has spread considerably from its home in Southern Africa.  It is now a fairly troublesome plant in many areas of the world, notably in Australia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesembryanthemum