Description :

• Succulent shrubs or small trees up to 6 m tall; stems usually large and swollen at base
• Leaves alternate or spirally arranged, often in terminal fascicles, sessile or shortly petioled; axillary glands 0; stipules transformed into rigid spines in pairs, forming a swollen cushion at base
• Inflorescence cymose, sessile or peduncled, few- or many-flowered
• Flowers usually showy, pink, purple or yellow, or sometimes partly white
• Calyx small, divided almost to base, eglandular within; lobes 5, ovate to linear-oblong
• Corolla salver-shaped, funnel-shaped, or subcampanulate; tube constricted near base, cylindric or broadly cylindric below, tubular to campanulate above; lobes shorter than or almost equalling tube, overlapping to the right
• Stamens 5, inserted above constriction; anthers 4-locular, subsessile, conniving in a cone, lanceolate, with only a short, terminal appendage, sagittate, polliniferous in upper part only, with projection near foot of connective and often a brush-like cushion below
• Disc cupular, slightly 5-lobed or replaced by 2-5 distinct glands
• Ovary of 2 free carpels; style cylindric or compressed, short; stigma subcylindric, with an annular rim or membrane at base, very obscurely 2-lobed; ovules many, pluriseriate
• Mericarps follicular, cylindric or spindle-shaped
• Seeds ovate to oblong with apical tuft of hairs
• x = 9

Nomenclature:

• Pachypodium Lindl.
  • Lindley: t. 1321 (1830)
  • Stapf: 515 (1907)
  • Codd: 283 (1963)
  • Kupicha: 462 (1985)
• Belonites E.Mey.
  • Meyer: 187 (1836)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 18, 13 native to Madagascar
• Southern Africa : Species 5, arid areas or dry situations in Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape