Ceropegia. | ASCLEPIADE (Brown). 805 
to minute pouches, or the lobes divided to the base and the halves 
adnate to the adjacent sides of the inner corona-lobes, the whole 
corona then apparently formed of 1 series of 5 trifid lobes opposite 
the anthers, or the halves or teeth of 2 adjacent lobes connate and 
forming 5 lobes immediately behind the inner corona-lobes, which 
are shorter to longer than the anthers and incumbent upon them, 
at least at the base, dorsally adnate at their base to the outer 
corona. Staminal column arising at or close to the base of the corolla, 
very short ; anthers ascending or incumbent on the top of the style, 
oblong or subquadrate, without an appendage. Pollen-mnasses ascend- 
ing or subhorizontal, solitary in each anther-cell, pellucid on the 
inner margin, attached in pairs by very short caudicles to the pollen- 
carriers or subsessile upon them. Style not exceeding the anthers, 
truncate or shortly conical at the apex. Follicles lanceolate, very 
narrowly fusiform or subterete, acutely acuminate or obtuse, smooth 
or rugose. Seeds crowned with a tuft of hairs. 
Perennial herbs ; rootstock a tuber or cluster of thick fleshy roots, or rarely 
with ordinary stout root-fibres ; stems erect, twining or rambling among other 
plants, prostrate or pendulous, herbaceous or fleshy ; leaves opposite or rarely 
absent ; flowers usually of moderate size or large, of singular and varied forms, 
solitary, in pairs, umbel-like cymes or rarely racemose, lateral at the nodes, rarely 
terminal. 
Distris. Species over 160, the others in Tropical Africa, the Mascarene Isles, 
Malay Archipelago and the hotter parts of Asia. In Tropical Africa the natives 
eat the tubers of several species, but I do not know if they do so in South Africa, 
The description of the basal inflation of the corolla-tube in most cases only applies 
to dried flowers and may not at all agree with that part in the living plant, as it 
alters very much and sometimes totally disappears (as in C. ampliata, E. Meyer) in 
the process of drying. The hairs within the corolla-tube are often quite invisible 
on dried flowers that have been wetted for examination, unless the open tube is 
doubled back in water and the edge of the fold viewed against the light, or until 
all moisture has evaporated from them and been replaced by air. This is also the 
case with the pubescence on the corona, 
* Corolla-lobes free at the tips : 
Stem strictly erect, 3-13 ft. high, not fleshy : 
Leaves linear, 4-34 lin, broad : : 
Corolla-lobes drooping (erect in some dried 
specimens), linear-oblong, or narrowly lan- 
ceolate-oblong, narrowed into a short stalk at 
the base : ‘ “ 
Corolla-tube 3— in. long ; lobes greenish-yellow 
without spot. sc, sc. cas oes LY ead, 
Corolla-tube 1-14 in. long ; lobes with two rows 
of glabrous blackish spots on a pubescent 
green ground... ae nee «.. (2) sororia. 
Corolla-lobes erect or somewhat spreading, repli- 
cate- or linear-filiform or filiform : 
Corolla-lobes 3-1} in. long, puberulous or 
tomentose on the inner face, with a tuft of 
red hairs near the base : 
Corolla smooth on the outside of the inflated 
base ; lobes slightly thickened upwards (3) tomentosa. 
Corolla papillate-scabrous on the outside of 
the inflated base ; lobes not thickened : 
upwards ... ie HES oe -.. (4) scabrifiora, 
