Description :

• Low, succulent, perennial herbs, branching sympodially from base, but not at all rhizomatose (except somewhat in S. engleriana )
• Stems pubescent or rarely glabrous, 4(5 or 6)-angled, ± parallel-sided or slightly tapering, neither tessellately marked nor sharply sulcate down sides, tubercle-toothed along angles
• Leaves erect (spreading in S. engleriana ), rudimentary, fleshy, pubescent, caducous or marcescent, decussately or spirally (5- or 6-angled) arranged at apex of tubercle teeth, with a pair of small, usually persistent, stipular glands at their base
• Inflorescence a successively flowering, shortly pedunculate, pubescent cyme, arising mostly from near base, but in some species randomly disposed along stem; flowers mostly foetid
• Corolla very variable in size (8-400 mm diameter), mostly deeply lobed, rotate, rarely campanulate, shallowly cup-shaped or funnel-shaped, in one species globose-campanulate, sometimes strongly recurved, usually transversely rugose, mostly to some extent hairy, sometimes densely so, yellowish, brownish, reddish or purplish
• Corona 2-seriate, shortly raised on a pentagonal pedestal, 10-lobed, with 5 outer lobes simple or very rarely bifid, and inner closely incumbent on backs of anthers, sometimes shorter than or scarcely exceeding them, but mostly produced above them into a horn-like extension, often with a prominent dorsal wing or secondary horn or variably gibbous near base
• Anthers 2-locular, horizontal on top of style head, rectangular
• Pollinia obliquely ovate, compressed
• Follicles fusiform, erect, sparsely pubescent or puberulous, very rarely glabrescent
• x = 11 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Stapelia L.
  • Linnaeus: 217 (1753)
  • Brown: 924 (1909)
  • White & Sloane: 409 (1937)
  • Leach: 4 (1985)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 43, Africa
• Southern Africa : Most from southern Africa, widespread in drier areas, except Lesotho