Family: Apocynaceae |
Bruyns et al. (2017). A revised, phylogenetically-based concept of Ceropegia (Apocynaceae) Plants herbaceous, often with succulent stems, varying from leafy to non-leafy, fleshy, succulent climbers with photosynthetic stems to small, erect, herbs, often arising from tubers or clusters of fleshy roots, or fleshy mat to clump-or shrub-forming succulents with soft, fibrous roots, succulent stems, and very reduced leaves. Inflorescences of extra-axillary, sometimes fleshy-pedunculate, cymes, these often in dense clusters, or of 1-many pedicellate flowers in dense clusters, the pedicels somewhat fleshy. Flowers: corollas rotate, sometimes lobed nearly to the bases, sometimes with a flat, fused portion immediately below the lobes; corolla tubes often inflated around the gynostegium. narrowing immediately above and then widening toward the mouth; lobes often remaining joined at the top, often darkly colored inside and smelling strongly, the smell like rotting meat; coralline coronas absent; staminal coronas present, usually in 2 well-developed series, the outher alternating with anthers, the inner opposited the anthers, outer staminal coronas occasionally much reduced or fused into a continuous cup-like structures. Follicles usually paired and slender; seeds with well-develloped, often swollen, margins. Ceropegia, as interpreted here, is a genus of 717 species that are native in Macaronesia, Africa, southern Europe, the Arabian Peninsula, southern Iran, Afghanistan through the Himalaya to China, southeast Asia to northern Australia. The distinguishing features of this expanded interpretation are the absence of hard, wiry roots, the softly fleshy tissue of the peduncles and pedicels, the absence of corolline coronas, the presence of two well-developed series in the staminal coronas, and the presence of a compitum [a tract of transmission tissue in the gynoecium that is common to all the carpels of a flower, thereby allowing pollen landing on any one stigma or part of a stigma to fertilise ovules in any carpel] in the style head leading to the fertilization of both ovaries. It includes some morphologically distinct groups that are sometimes treated as genera but have been found to be embedded in Ceropegia, sometimes being located into more one section. Descriptions of the sections will be added as time permits. This interpretation is almost twice as large as that adopted by Plants of the World Online (2022-07-30). The justification for use of this broader interpretation is in Bruyns et al. 2017). As adoptd here, Ceropegia is represented in Somaliland and Somalia by 69 species. They are treated under 15 different generic names in the Flora of Somalia (Ceropegia s.s., Ballyanthus, Caralluma, Desmidorchis, Duvalia, Echidnopsis, Edithcolea, Huernia, Orbea, Pseudolithos, Pseudopectinatia. Rhyitidocaulon, Sanguilluma, and White-Sloanea). Key to the species of Ceropegia present in Somaliland and Somalia. Bruyns, P.V., C. Klak & P. Hanáček (2017) A revised, phylogenetically-based concept of Ceropegia (Apocynaceae). South African Journal of Botany 112: 499-436. Bruyns, P.V., C. Klak & P. Hanáček (2018) Corrigendum to “A revised, phylogenetically-based concept of Ceropegia (Apocynaceae)” [S. Afr. J. Bot. 112 (2017) 399–436]. South African Journal of Botany 116: 140-141
Global distribution of Ceropegia. Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.
|