Tiger jaws succulent

What should you grow when you desperately want to grow a venus flytrap but struggle to keep one alive?  The answer, surprisingly, is to grow a succulent.  

Tiger jaws succulents (Faucaria tigrina) look superficially similar to a venus fly trap with open jaws and ferocious looking teeth.  While it looks similar to a flytrap, these are not carnivorous, they don't move.  

These succulents have soft harmless teeth, but they sure look like they could take a nasty bite out of you. 

Tiger jaw succulent

Tiger jaw succulent

Tiger's jaw succulents look great and are easy to grow succulents, yet are not seen overly often.  They are not rare, and are not difficult to grow, but you don't see them every day.  I guess this is because they are not overly fast growers. 

Like a lot of interesting and unique plants, the tiger jaw succulent originally came from South Africa.  I don't know what it is with that country, but they have a lot of unique and cool looking plants.

Tigers jaw succulent

Starting to divide

Tiger's jaw succulent looks like gaping mouths with vicious teeth.  Some forms are a bit stripey, others more spotted, other forms are mostly green.  The more reddish orange colour you see on mine is only on older leaves that are fading and about to die.  

The scary looking teeth on the edges of the leaves are soft, and do not pose any risk of hurting anyone.  If (ie when) your kids touch them, the plants are in far more danger of being hurt than your kids.  

They grow a surprisingly large, yellow, daisy like flower once per year usually in autumn or winter.  The flower can sometimes be larger than the entire plant.  I find that they tend to divide/clump after flowering. 

Look like ferocious mouths

The teeth on this succulent look vicious but are actually really soft.  Unlike a cactus or a rose, you could not hurt yourself on this plant.  This plant is great for kids because they can't hurt delicate fingers.  Unlike a Venus flytrap these plants can take a bit of rough treatment.  

I have read that the teeth on a tiger jaw succulent are used by the plant to capture and direct water to its roots.  I am not sure if I believe that, when I water them the teeth never direct the water towards the roots.  I guess their purpose doesn't matter, what matters is how cool they look.

Being a succulent, these little ones don't need a lot of water to survive.  I find that most succulents do best when well watered, and tend to rot if sat in water.  

They seem to do well in full sun, but like most plants they appear to prefer a little protection from afternoon sun.  Some people grow them inside the house, this is fine but they need to be on a window sill where they can get a few hours of direct sun, otherwise they will slowly die.

The tiger jaw succulent don't love frosts.  Mine are growing in sheltered positions where they get the occasional light frost without showing damage, but I think hard frost would likely kill them.  

Tiger jaws succulent

If you like succulents, this is one to keep an eye out for.  It is simple enough to grow, and I think it looks incredible.  

If you have kids who want a venus flytrap, but are not likely to keep it alive, then this is worth trying to track down as it looks a lot like a venus flytrap, and is far simpler to keep alive. 

A word of warning, there are a lot of people online who like to sell fake seeds.  If you want a tiger jaw succulent, it is simple to buy a plant, don't buy seeds unless you are certain that you trust the seller.  

Buying seed of cool looking plants from places like Etsy or Ebay does not always work out well as you can't know if you are being sent seeds of this plant or just some random seeds.  Once seeds from ebay or the like grow and you work out you have been duped a lot of time has passed and it is too late for you to do anything about it.

I have no idea how easy these would be to grow from seed, I suspect pretty simple but likely takes a few years to reach a decent size.  It seems simpler for the average gardener to just buy a plant, that way you instantly have an incredible looking plant and you know you will get what you pay for.