Sarcostemma viminale viminale
| Family: | Asclepiadaceae |
| Full name: | Sarcostemma viminale (L.) R.Br. subsp. viminale |
| Location: | Naukluft (2416AC) |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Melktou, Melktoubos, Melktoubossie, Spantou, Spantou-melkbos, Spantoumelkbos, Wolfsmelk, Spanmelktou, Bobbejaantou |
| English common name(s): | Caustic vine, Caustic bush, Caustic creeper |
| Synonym(s): | Asclepias aphylla Thunb. Asclepias nuda Schumach. & Thonn. Cynanchum aphyllum (Thunb.) Schltr. Cynanchum tetrapterum (Turcz.) R.A.Dyer Euphorbia viminalis L. Sarcostemma andongense Hiern Sarcostemma aphyllum (Thunb.) R.Br. Sarcostemma aphyllum Thunb. Sarcostemma tetrapterum Turcz. |
| Status: | -, BOT, LES, NAM, EC, FS, KN, LP, MP, WC, SWZ |
| Description: | Succulent vine. Stems and branches mostly prostrate or scrambling over other vegetation, grey-green, producing milky sap when broken. The leaves are reduced to scales. Flowers in spherical umbels, sweetly scented. Fruits carrot-shaped, containing seeds with a pappus of white, silky hairs. (from Flora of Zimbabwe website) Stem cylindrical, 3-7 mm in diameter, green, glabrous, internodes 10-20 cm long. Flowers sweet-scented in sessile many-flowered terminal umbels. Pedicels 6-12 mm long, pubescent. Bracts minute, linear-lanceolate. Sepals 5, 1-1.5 mm long, subacute, margin membranous, glandular inside near the base. Corolla campanulate, pale greenish white, divided almost to the base, lobes c.5 mm long, ovate-oblong, subacute. Outer corona crenately 10-lobed, lobes of the inner corona thick, fleshy obtuse, longer than the staminal column and concealing the anther. Staminal column very short. Pollen-masses compressed, clavate. Follicles 10-13 cm x 8 mm, lanceolate, tapering at both ends, slightly diverging when 2 together. Seeds 3-6 mm long, flattened ovate. Coma 1.8 cm long. (from Flora of Pakistan, http://www.efloras.org website) Stems 1-3 m, ascending, not twining (straggling, rarely contorted screw-like) 3-5 mm diameter, strongly wax-covered, glabrous; Inflorescence 10- to 25- flowered, preudo-umbellate, from 4-6 cm long lateral Br; Flower strongly sweet-scented; Corolla greenish-yellow; Petals 4 mm, spreading to incumbent; C(is) +- 2.5 mm; Cs 1.5 mm, shorter than the Gy; Style head (flatly) conical; Fruit <= 18 cm, oblong; Seed 4-5 mm, oblong-ovate, smooth, winged. (from Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants: Asclepiadaceae, Volume 5, edited by Focke Albers, Ulrich Meve, p. 236) Subsp. viminale does not occur at all in Most of S and W Namibia, W northern Cape and northern Cape. Down to Cape Town. The only other thick stemmed Cynanchum here is pearsonianum (Sarcostemma pearsonii). (http://www.ispot.org.za/node/199208) |
| 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: | 14 Dec 2017 |
| Camera make: | Canon |
| Camera model: | EOS 7D |
| Lens aperture: | f/9.0 |
| Shutter speed: | 1/3200 s |
| ISO speed: | 1250 |
| Content last updated: | 16 Apr 2024 |
