6874.000 Ceropegia L.

Perennial herbs; rootstock a cluster of fusiform roots, a globose to disciform tuber or series of tubers or, rarely a rhizome or, in species with succulent stems, often with fibrous roots only; latex clear, rarely slightly cloudy in succulent stemmed species; indumentum of simple hairs. Stems erect, twining or trailing, herbaceous or succulent, sometimes slightly woody at base in more robust twining species. Leaves opposite, petiolate or sessile, sometimes reduced and scale like. Inflorescences extra-axillary, sometimes apparently terminal, pedunculate or sessile, mostly umbel-like cymes, less often raceme-like or paniculate. Sepals free or almost so, filiform to lanceolate, acute. Corolla varying from divided almost to the base to forming a well-developed tube longer than the free parts of the corolla lobes, often with the base enlarged into a basal chamber; lobes varying from strongly reflexed to incurved and joined at their tips to form a cage, tips sometimes enlarged to form a parasol-like structure or extended into terminal beak or column, glabrous or hairy, hairs sometimes clavate and versatile. Gynostegial corona 2-seriate; outer series mostly two-lobed, sometimes joining laterally to form continuous cup, sometimes reduced to small teeth at bases of inner lobes or virtually absent; inner series more or less linear, varying from about as long as anthers and horizontal to erect, often adhering to form central column, or reduced to small teeth on inside of cupular outer corona. Anthers reaching margin of gynostegial cap; pollinia ovoid to more or less D-shaped, attached basally to the small translater arms and with well-developed germination crests on inner margins. Follicles usually paired, rarely solitary, parallel to widely divergent, narrowly to broadly fusiform, hairless.

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

Worldwide: C. 380 species in Arabia, Africa, Madagascar, Indian Peninsula and China.

DRC: 1 taxon.