6885.050 Orbea Haw.

Succulents, spineless; often rhizomatous, forming compact to diffuse clumps. Stems decumbent to prostrate, fleshy and firm, glabrous, purplish, mottled; tubercles spreading, often laterally flattened. Inflorescences glabrous, often 1-3 per stem; 1-40 flowered; bracts 1-several, lanceolate with several teeth. Sepals 5, lanceolate, acuminate; corolla usually rotate to campanulate, often thickened into a prominent annulus around a mount, mostly deeply lobed. Fruit consisting of erect follicles, divergent with two horns.

Comment: More recent phylogenetic evidence has led to the forming of a very broad concept of the genus Ceropegia including the genus Brachystelma and all known genera within the Stapeliae (Bruyns, P.V., Klak, C. & Hanáček, P., 2017). However we follow Goyder et Al. in Flora Zambesiaca 7(2), 2020 where the inclusion of the Stapeliad genera has not been accepted.

Worldwide: 56 species in Africa and South West Arabia.

Mozambique: 8 taxa.