Stems slightly woody, much branched at base, with cottony tomentum when young
Leaves thick, fleshy, broad, with cottony tomentum on lower surfaces, nearly sessile, oblong-obovate to broadly obovate, apex apiculate, base narrowly cordate
Inflorescence cymes, lateral, umbellate, mostly solitary at nodes
Calyx: lobes ovate-lanceolate, glandular within
Corolla broadly campanulate, pink above and white at base; lobes ovate-lanceolate, erect
Corona of broad scales, laterally compressed with a dorsal spur, adnate to and equalling or longer than staminal column, apex bifid; basal spur acute, incurved
Anthers with thin white membranous tips
Pollinia pendulous in each anther theca; corpuscle dark brown, rod-shaped, 2-celled
Style head 4 mm long, pentagonal
Follicles inflated, subglobose to obliquely ovoid
Seeds ovate, with a tuft of silky hairs
Nomenclature:
*Calotropis R.Br.
Brown: 28 (1810)
Rahman & Wilcock: 301 (1991)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species 3, distributed in tropical and subtropical Africa and Asia, and introduced into Central and South America
Southern Africa: Species 1 naturalised: *Calotropis procera (Aiton) R.Br
References:
BROWN, R. 1810. On the Asclepiadeae, a natural order of plants separated from the Apocineae of Jussieu. Memoirs of the Wernerian Natural History Society 1
RAHMAN, M.A. & WILCOCK, C.C. 1991.A taxonomic revision of Calotropis (Asclepiadaceae). Nordic Journal of Botany 11:301
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Welcome to Biodiversity Advisor 2.0!
Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
The integrated information comes from our much-loved Botanical Database of Southern Africa (BODATSA) also known as Plants of Southern Africa (POSA), Zoological Database of Southern Africa (ZODATSA), Biodiversity Geographic Information System (BGIS), SANBI's institutional repository (Opus) and others.
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