6874.000 Ceropegia L.

Perennial herbs, mostly climbing or scrambling, sometimes erect, with tubers or fleshy or fibrous roots. Leaves opposite, simple, sometimes succulent. Flowers in umbel-like clusters, racemes or 1-several at the nodes. Sepals 5. Corolla tubular, usually with an inflated base; lobes free or connate into a cage or umbrella-like structure. Corona 2-seriate. Follicles fusiform. Seeds narrowly winged with an apical tuft of hairs.

Derivation of name: from Greek: keros, meaning wax and pege, a stream of fountains, referring to the waxy nature of some of the flowers.

Comment: For this genus we follow the concepts of Meve. More recent phylogenetic evidence has led to the forming of a very broad concept of the genus Ceropegia including the genus Brachystelma and all known genera within the Stapeliae (Bruyns, P.V., Klak, C. & Hanáček, P., 2017). We will await a broader form of acceptance of this new concept before changing the taxonomy in our database.

Worldwide: 160 species in Arabia, Africa, Madagascar and Australia

Zimbabwe: 1 cultivated taxon.