When Mike bought the above plant, unlabelled, for about US$3 a few weeks ago, it was about 20cm high, and had lovely green slightly shiny leaves with rounded serrations, making it a nice bit of greenery to replace something in a tub on a 1st floor terrace that had succumbed to the hot weather while we were away.  Since  then it has grown quite a bit, and to our amazement the serrations of the leaves have morphed to produce tiny little plants which are dropping off and several have already started growing around the parent.  We think it is very beautiful.

I put a pic of it out on Facebook, and comments there confirmed my suspicion this will become a weed and perhaps a real pest before too long !  The comments were educational – the plant is one of the Kalanchoe family,  known in some places as ‘mother of thousands’, and someone warned of the toxic nature of the leaves.  But as there are plenty of toxic plants in our gardens, and we have faced some pretty formidable weeds in our time, we’ve decided for the moment at least it stays in its pot up on the 1st floor terrace.  All these little new plants remind me of those animals such as sea horses, some fish and spiders that carry around many tiny offsprings inside or clinging to their bodies until they’re large enough to let go.