Ceropegia tomentosa

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Ceropegia tomentosa
Systematics
Family : Dog poison family (Apocynaceae)
Subfamily : Silk plants (Asclepiadoideae)
Tribe : Ceropegieae
Sub tribus : Stapeliinae
Genre : Candlestick flowers ( Ceropegia )
Type : Ceropegia tomentosa
Scientific name
Ceropegia tomentosa
Schltr.

Ceropegia tomentosa is a species of the subfamily of the silk plant family (Asclepiadoideae). It may already be extinct.

features

Vegetative characteristics

Ceropegia is a perennial plant with upright, non-twisting shoots and thick, fleshy roots. The few annual shoots are hardly branched and reach heights of 20 to 40 cm. The leaves have no stems and are upright. They are linearly pointed and measure 25 to 100 mm in length and 1 to 3 mm in width.

Inflorescence and flowers

The inflorescences with only one, at most two flowers develop laterally at the upper nodes. The hermaphrodite, zygomorphic flowers are five-fold and have a double flower envelope. The flower stalks are 5 to 10 mm long. The awl sepals are 5 to 8 mm long. The five petals are fused in the basal half to a straight, bare outside corolla tube ( sympetalie ). The base of the corolla tube ("Kronkessel") is inflated spherical to ovoid with a diameter of 5 to 8 mm. It is greenish to yellowish in color on the outside, partly also provided with a purple-colored pattern and bare to roughened papillae. The crown basin gradually merges into the actual crown tube, which decreases to a diameter of 3 mm approximately in the middle. Towards the opening of the flower it widens like a funnel to a diameter of 4 to 5 mm. This section is purple in color. The upright or splaying petal lobes have a narrow, triangular base and then become quite abruptly linear to thread-shaped. They are bent outwards along the central axis and covered with fine hairs on the inside. The tips are 2.5 to 3.5 cm long, greenish in color and provided with a purple pattern. The base of the tip is densely covered with curled or intertwined, yellowish hair, directly above the base with a tuft of purple club-shaped hair. The sessile, whitish-yellowish corolla is fused cup-shaped at the base. The hairy tips of the interstaminal side crown are triangular-pocket-shaped, stand upright and are 1 to 2 mm long. At the outer end, they are deeply cut in the middle and end in two pointed, narrow triangular appendages. The tips of the staminal secondary crown are approx. 2 mm long and linear-spatulate in shape. They incline over the stylus head.

Fruits and seeds

Fruits and seeds are not known.

Geographical distribution and ecology

The distribution area depends on whether the synonymization of Ceropegia tomentosa and Ceropegia scabrifolia is accepted or not. In the former case, the species occurs in three disjoint areas: near Fort Bowker (Fort Bowker is 32 km east of Dutywa ) and Butterworth , Amathole District , Eastern Cape , South Africa and near Verulam (metropolitan municipality eThekwini ) in the KwaZulu-Natal province and at Piet Retief in the Gert Sibande district , Mpumalanga province . It grows there in the dry grasslands. In the second case, the area would be limited to the Eastern Cape Province.

Systematics and taxonomy

The taxon was first described by Rudolf Schlechter in 1894. In 1908 Nicholas Edward Brown described the taxon Ceropegia scabriflora in "Flora Capensis" . Herber Huber (1957) and Robert Dyer (1983) consider Ceropegia scabriflora and Ceropegia tomentosa to be two different taxa. But Dyer already points out that C. scabriflora differs very little from C. tomentosa , namely by the corolla tube, which is rough on the outside. Due to their rarity, the variability of the two taxa is practically unknown. Therefore, Ulriche Meve synonymized the two taxa in the succulent dictionary. He even suspects that Ceropegia bowkeri could also belong to this taxon.

Danger

Due to the destruction of the original location of the type, it is rather unlikely that the species still exists. Ceropegia scabriflora became extinct at the type site (Verulam) because the area was built over. No further finds have been made from the second site; it is not known whether the species still exists there.

supporting documents

literature

  • Robert Allen Dyer: Ceropegia, Brachystelma and Riocreuxia in southern Africa. VIII, 242 p., Rotterdam, Balkema, 1983 ISBN 90-6191-227-X (p. 189/1)
  • Herbert H. Huber: Revision of the genus Ceropegia. In: Memórias da Sociedade Broteriana , Volume 12, 1957, pp. 1–203, Coimbra (description by C. dinteri p. 134)
  • 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. 68)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rudolf Schlechter: Contributions to the knowledge of South African Asclepiadaceen. In: Botanical Yearbooks for Systematics, Plant History and Plant Geography , Volume 18, Beiblatt No. 45, 1894, pp. 1-40, Leipzig. [1]
  2. ↑ William T. Thiselton-Dyer (ed.): Flora capensis: being a systematic description of the plants of the Cape Colony, Caffraria, & Port Natal (and neighboring territories). Volume 4, Section I Vacciniaceae - Gentianeae. 1168 pp., London, Reeve 1905-1909 ( Ceropegia scabriflora p. 810/1, Ceropegia tomentosa p. 810; Part 5: pp. 673-864 was published in 1908) Online at biodiversitylibrary.org
  3. ↑ Red List of South African Plants - Ceropegia tomentosa
  4. ↑ Red List of South African Plants - Ceropegia scabriflora

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