Cleome suffruticosa
| Family: | Capparaceae |
| Full name: | Cleome suffruticosa Schinz |
| Location: | Kyffhäuser (2416AD + 2416CB) |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | - |
| English common name(s): | Shrubby spiderplant, Spider plant, Spiderplant, Shrubby cleome |
| Synonym(s): | Polanisia suffruticosa (Schinz) Pax fide Fl. S. Africa 13: 133 |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Yellow flowers (similar to C. foliosa). Erect, rigid annual herb 20-60 cm tall, often freely branched from the base. Stems striate, viscid glandular-pubescent; pubescence of dense, short stipitate glands. Leaves 5(-7)-foliolate, petiolate; petioles up to 4 cm long, glandular-pubescent; leaflets lanceolate to obovate-oblanceolate, 1-4 cm long, 2.5-10 mm broad, becoming progressively smaller towards the inflorescence and grading into the bracts, obtuse to acute at the apex, cuneate at the base, glandular-pubescent especially on the margins and nerves below. Inflorescence a terminal raceme, stout, stiffly erect, elongating in fruit; bracts 3-foliolate, resembling the leaves but smaller, shortly petiolate to almost sessile, glandular-pubescent; pedicels 1-2 cm long. Sepals ovate-elliptic to lanceolate, 4-7 mm long, acute to acuminate, glandular-puberulous outside. Petals yellow, often reflexed, obovate, 1-2.2 cm long, 5-12 mm broad, narrowed to a distinct claw at the base. Stamens 12-24, all fertile, unequal, with 4-5(-7) longer and stouter than the rest, equalling the petals; filaments pale yellow in the upper, short stamens, tending to be pale violet in the longer ones; anthers 1.5 mm long. Ovary about 1 mm long; stigma subcapitate. Capsule erect, linear, straight or often slightly curved, 2-6 cm long, 3-3.5 mm broad; valves glandular-puberulous, chartaceous, not dehiscing completely to the base; gynophore (3-)5-12 mm long, glandular-puberulous; style (2-)4-5(-6) mm long. Seeds dark brown, circular in outline, 1.25 mm in diameter; surface reticulate-foveolate. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora of Southern Africa) The species is related to C. carnosa, as will be seen from the glandular-puberulous gynophores and the erect capsules which do not dehisce to the base; it differs from that species in the more robust stature and the longer gynophores and the longer capsules which are glandular-puberulous, not glandular-hispid. The characters separating it from C. kalachariensis are discussed under that species. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora of Southern Africa) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien iNaturalist (Namibia / Alex Dreyer) iNaturalist (Namibia) iNaturalist (southern Africa) Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie Tree Atlas of Namibia |
| Photographer: | AA Dreyer |
| Date of photograph: | 21 Mar 2008 |
| Camera make: | Canon |
| Camera model: | PowerShot A700 |
| Lens aperture: | f/4.0 |
| Shutter speed: | 1/1000 s |
| ISO speed: | - |
| Content last updated: | 18 Apr 2024 |
