Cactus Solution

The following items can be done in any order and/or concurrently:

  1. Place the succulents on the grid. This is a picross/nonogram variant. The axis labels indicate the total number of each succulent to put in each row/column. Note that the numbers are unordered and do not necessarily indicate contiguous blocks of the same succulent.

  2. Place the plant markers on the grid. This is a crossword variant, and the clues and instructions are found on the last page of the booklet. The letter pairs need to be arranged on the grid such that the answer to each clue appears somewhere in the grid. Each plant marker/letter pair appears exactly once. Unlike a normal crossword, the rows and columns don't all spell coherent things. Also, the position of each clue answer is not provided, and needs to be figured out based on which answers intersect due to sharing a letter pair.

    ClueAnswer
    one of the heaven(ly) dwarves (4)eris
    popular Tuesday food (4)taco
    poise (6)aplomb
    disturbed the sleep of those in earshot, probably (6)snored
    John Wick (6)reeves
    hindrance, perhaps to speech (10)impediment
    item to eat on the go, whether chewy or crunchy (7,3)granolabar
    journalist for the Daily Planet (4)lois
    like some beef (6)corned
    ______ but goodies (6)oldies
    something similar to simile (8)metaphor
    figure often depicted with a scythe (4,6)grimreaper

  3. Identify the 5 succulents in the web app. This is done by looking at the pictures in the booklet and comparing to the ones in the web app.

    From top to bottom:

    1. Cotyledon tomentosa
    2. Faucaria felina
    3. Haworthia fasciata
    4. Epiphyllum anguliger
    5. Portulacaria afra

    Fully completed grid:

Once the team has finished the above steps, they can extract the answer as follows:

  1. Find the common names of the 5 succulents. Each of the 5 succulents is a real succulent species, and their common names can be found by looking up the scientific name on a search engine.

    This step is hinted at in the following ways:

    1. The flavor text at the beginning of the booklet talks about naming succulents and looking at the names
    2. The booklet is missing the common names for the 5 succulents in the web app (all other succulents in the booklet have their common name listed)
    3. The flavor text at the beginning of the booklet mentions the site worldofsucculents.com. Each of the succulents can be looked up on this site to find the common name.

    The common names are:

    1. Cotyledon tomentosa: bear's paw
    2. Faucaria felina: tiger jaws
    3. Haworthia fasciata: zebra plant
    4. Epiphyllum anguliger: fishbone cactus
    5. Portulacaria afra: elephant bush

    From here, it should become apparent that each succulent corresponds to an animal, and each of the 5 animals is represented by the patterns on the plant markers.

  2. Eliminate the plant markers where the animal pattern doesn't match the succulent's common name. For example, eliminate the bear-patterned plant markers that aren't placed on a bear's paw succulent. Reading the letters on the remaining plant markers spells "grandicornis"

  3. Look up "grandicornis" on a search engine or worldofsucculents.com to find that it refers to Euphorbia grandicornis, a succulent with the common name "cow's horn."

    The fact that the letters on the plant markers are lowercase and italicized is a subtle hint towards grandicornis being part of a scientific name

Solution

COWSHORN or COWHORN

Partial Answers

GRANDICORNIS: Keep going EUPHORBIAGRANDICORNIS: Keep going APLOMB: Yes, that is part of the puzzle CORNED: Yes, that is part of the puzzle ERIS: Yes, that is part of the puzzle GRANOLABAR: Yes, that is part of the puzzle GRIMREAPER: Yes, that is part of the puzzle IMPEDIMENT: Yes, that is part of the puzzle OLDIES: Yes, that is part of the puzzle LOIS: Yes, that is part of the puzzle METAPHOR: Yes, that is part of the puzzle REEVES: Yes, that is part of the puzzle SNORED: Yes, that is part of the puzzle TACO: Yes, that is part of the puzzle

Hinting

  • Solving the crossword
    • If they are trying to (re)arrange the crossword based on the animal patterns
      • Tell them the animal patterns aren't used in solving the crossword
    • If they don't understand the crossword layout/where to place pieces
      • Remind them that some of the pieces can be used in more than 1 clue and take advantage of that fact to figure out the layout
  • Assembled grid but did NOT find common names of the succulents/don't know how to match the succulents to the plant labels
    • If they haven't identified the scientific names of the succulents in the puzzle
      • Hint towards seeing whether the succulent listing in the guide might be relevant/whether any of the succulents in there look familiar
    • If they have identified the succulents
      • Hint towards taking another look at the booklet and figuring out what's different with the 5 succulents compared to the other succulents in the booklet
  • Assembled grid and found common name of the succulents but still don't know the next step
    • Note that there is a possible relation between the marker and the plant in each pot and they need to figure out the relationship
    • If they understand the matching, but don't know what to do with the matches
      • Hint towards reading left -> right, top -> bottom or point out the clue on the crossword page that says that
    • If they are trying to redo the crossword/rearrange the pieces based on the animal patterns
      • Note to team that no more pieces need to move (assuming the grid is correct), maybe hint more towards eliminating certain pieces or selecting certain pieces based on the info they have
    • If they give up partway through extracting "grandicornis" because some plants have > 1 correct matches and some have 0
      • Hint towards not fixating on number of matches
  • Figuring out what to do after getting "grandicornis"
    • Hint that the knowledge they already have and the steps that they've already taken will be helpful in understanding the next step that needs to be taken