Ceropegia arenaria
| Ceropegia arenaria | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Ceropegia arenaria | ||||||||||||
| RADyer |
Ceropegia arenaria is a species of the subfamily of the silk plant family (Asclepiadoideae). The species is native to South Africa. Very unusual for the genus Ceropegia , the species grows in a dune forest near the coast on sandy soil.
features
Vegetative characteristics
Ceropegia arenaria is a perennial plant with creeping or climbing, but not twisting shoots and fleshy, thickened, slightly succulent, tufted roots. The succulent shoots have a diameter of 3 to 4 mm and are stem-round. They are patterned dark to light green, the surface is matt. Rhizomes can also be formed at the nodes . The leaves are stalked, the stems up to 2 mm long. The only slightly succulent, egg-shaped to lanceolate leaf blades are up to 4 cm long and 2.5 cm wide. The leaves often appear obsolete.
Inflorescence and flowers
The inflorescence consists of two or three flowers. It is stalked, the stalk 5 to 15 mm long. The flowers open one by one. The five-fold zygomorphic flowers with double bloom are hermaphroditic . The flower stalks reach a length of 5 to 10 mm. The sepals are lanceolate and 4 to 5 mm long. The five petals are largely fused together like a tube and form a corolla up to 6 cm long (high). It is whitish-yellow with purple spots. The crown basin divides into two sections, a basal, oblong-egg-shaped, up to 14 mm long part, which is followed by a slight kink and a constriction of a spherical swelling. This part has a diameter of 6 to 7 mm. In the middle of the corolla tube the smallest diameter is reached with approx. 4 mm; When the flower opens, the crown widens like a funnel to around 15 mm in diameter. The 20 to 25 mm long corolla lobes are linear-spatula-shaped with a triangular base. The lamina are completely bent back along the longitudinal axis and form keel inside. The tips are connected to one another and form a cage-like structure with a strongly constricted center; the inner keels of the corolla lobes touch here or at least come very close. In the lower half, the corolla lobes are light yellow on the inside with brown hairy edges (in the middle in contact); in the upper half they are brownish red. The edges here are occupied by purple-colored, flexible hair up to 6 mm long.
The secondary crown is more or less seated, measures 5 × 4 mm and is fused with a cup at the base. The interstaminal (outer) corolla lobes are up to 3 mm long, at the upper end deeply 3-parted, whereby the middle process is very short, the two outer processes are triangularly pointed and standing upright. The staminal (inner) minor corolla lobes, on the other hand, are linear, approx. 3 mm long, upright and converging at the ends.
Fruits and seeds
Fruits and seeds are not yet known.
Geographical distribution and ecology
The species has so far only been known from a small area between Lake Mpangazi and Sodwana Bay in KwaZulu-Natal , South Africa . It grows there in a dune forest on sandy soil in the scrub. Ulrich Meve speculates about a possible hybridogenic origin of the "species" - "with C. denticulata and C. cimiciodora as possible parents".
literature
- Ulrich Meve: Ceropegia . In: Focke Albers, Ulrich Meve (Hrsg.): Succulents Lexicon Volume 3 Asclepiadaceae (silk plants) . Pp. 61–107, Eugen Ulmer Verlag, Stuttgart 2002. ISBN 3-8001-3982-0 (p. 65)
- Robert Allen Dyer: New species of Ceropegia. In: Bothalia , Volume 12, No. 3, 1978, pp. 444–445 (p. 444, PDF )
- Robert Allen Dyer: Ceropegia, Brachystelma and Riocreuxia in southern Africa. VIII, 242 pp., Rotterdam, Balkema, 1983 ISBN 90-6191-227-X (pp. 174/5)