Ophthalmophyllum are closely related to Conophytum. An exact distinction can be made between all the Conophytums and the Lithops using flowers and seed capsules, but they are also pretty easy for the layman to separate by eye.
Lithops have relatively large heads, from half an inch up to a couple of inches across. They are usually patterned on top of the leaves with small or large transparent windows. Conophytums have generally smaller heads, although the largest Conophytums are larger than the smallest Lithops. They mostly have no windows or only tiny transparent dots, and they remain sheathed inside the old leaf pair right through the summer. They are considered short-day growers while the Lithops are considered long day growers. To make things more confusing, the Ophthalmophyllum group do have transparent tops to the leaves but are not strongly patterned. While Lithops tend to a wide conical leaf shape with a flat top, Conophytums including Ophthalmophyllums have taller more cylindrical shapes with rounded tops. Lithops have white or yellow flowers with just a few hints of pink, always opening in the afternoon. Conophytums include pink flowers and many of them open at night. Conophytum leaves are even more strongly fused than Lithops, showing at most a small central opening for a flower and sometimes no fissure at all.
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