EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Roll Out the Red Carpet

Common Carpetweed (Sesuvium portulacastrum), Family Aizoaceae
South Plaza Island, Galapagos, Ecuador

Explanation:  This might as well be some honor awards ceremony, for all the red carpeting!  But, instead, we are wading through the world of common carpetweed, here on the Plaza Islands in the amazing Galapagos archipelago of Ecuador.

With thick succulent leaves, this is one of two "carpetweed" species endemic to the archipelago, although with numerous varieties found among the islands as fine examples of divergent evolution.  The genus Sesuvium has an amazingly global tropical and subtropical distribution, but this species is found only here on these isolated islands.  Its botanical family, Aizoaceae, includes ice plants and is known as the fig-marigold family, consisting of about 1,800 species world-wide.  

Common carpetweed is green following the rains, but becomes this brilliant orange-red during the cool dry or garua season.

The species is doing well, given its occurrence on these protected islands.  

Here, a land iguana has emerged from its burrow
that is partially protected by a thicket of carpetweed.
This location might afford some security
both from a blazing sun and from aerial predators. 

Common carpetweed can occur as individual plants
creating isolated patches -- call them carpetweed islands on islands, eh? --
or as continuous ground cover, such as shown in images further above.

The leaves are a bit over an inch long.
One source suggests that common carpetweed can be
used elsewhere as a medicine or as animal food.