Cadaba aphylla
| Family: | Capparaceae |
| Full name: | Cadaba aphylla (Thunb.) Wild |
| Location: | Farm Urikos (2415AC) |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Swartstorm, Swartstormbos, Rooistorm, Rooistormbos, Stormbos, Bobbejaanarm, Blou stam, Bloustam, Doubos, Douwurmbos, Gifhoutjie |
| English common name(s): | Desert broom, Desert spray, Leafless wormbush, Leafless worm bush, Black storm, Leafless cadaba |
| Synonym(s): | Cadaba juncea (Sparrm.) Harv. ex Hook.f. fide Fl. S. Africa 13: 172 Cleome aphylla Thunb. Cleome juncea Sparrm. - (1780), non Berg. (1767) Schepperia juncea (Sparrm.) DC. fide Fl. S. Africa 13: 172 |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Leafless shrub, small tree or tangled bush, often virgate with perennial woody base, usually about 2 m high (3 m in tree form); branches somewhat weak and often fleshy, dark green often with purple bloom, glabrous. Leaves present only on seedlings and some very young branches, alternate, not crowded, subsessile, oblong, 10 mm long, 2 mm wide, glabrous, green, thin, drying leathery, lateral veins not conspicuous; petiole c. 1 mm long, glabrous. Flowers corymbose or racemose in appearance on side shoo s; pedicel glabrous or glandular, 8-11 mm long; buds ovate in outline. Sepals 4, free, decussate, subequal, 9-15 x 5-7 mm, yellowish-green, orange or dark red, glandular. Petals 0. Androphore 2-3 cm long, glandular-pubescent to glabrous, with basal nectary, not conspicuous in open flowers, often persisting on young fruits, cup-shaped with nvoluted mouth covered by a flap, neck absent. Stamens usually 8 (6-13), arising from same level, filaments equal, often persisting on young fruit. Gynophore c. 10 mm long, glandular or glabrous. Ovary cylindric, with capitate, sessile stigma. Ovules numerous, attached on two placentas. Fruit cylindric, usually 5-9 cm long and 6-7 mm wide, verrucose, subtorulose, glabrous to glandular. Seeds embedded in powdery matrix, c. 4 mm long, reniform with verrucose black to brown testa. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora of Southern Africa) Leafless, twiggy shrub to 2 m tall; branches rather virgate, stiff, smooth, green or glaucous with subspinous apices, glabrous, young branches with subulate leaf scales up to 2 mm long. Flowers in short, corymbose, axillary racemes; rhachis 0.3–2.3 cm long, glabrous or glandular-pubescent; bracts subulate, c. 1 mm long; pedicels glabrous or glandular-pubescent, up to 1.3 cm long. Sepals 4, yellow or reddish-purple, 1–1.7 x 0.7–1 cm, the lowest rather larger than the remainder, connate at the base into a very shallow receptacle c. 1 mm in depth, broadly elliptic, obtuse at the apex, with capitate, glandular hairs densely or sparsely scattered on both sides. Petals 0. Androgynophore 2.5–3 mm long, glabrous, shallowly declinate with a hooded nectary at its base c. 4 mm broad. Stamens 8; filaments 1 cm long; anthers 2.3 x 0.75 mm, oblong. Gynophore c. 1 cm long, glabrous or glandular-pubescent. Ovary narrowly cylindric, glabrous or glandular-pubescent; ovules numerous, on 2 placentas; stigma capitate, sessile. Fruit up to 8 x 0.4 cm, cylindric, subtorulose, glandular or minutely verrucose, many-seeded. Seeds brown, c. 0.3 cm in diam., subglobose. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora of Zambesiaca) |
| 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: | 22 Mar 2013 |
| Camera make: | Panasonic |
| Camera model: | DMC-FZ45 |
| Lens aperture: | f/4.0 |
| Shutter speed: | 1/250 s |
| ISO speed: | 100 |
| Content last updated: | 18 Apr 2024 |
