Ceropegia nutans (Bruyns) Bruyns

Bruyns, Peter V., Klak, Cornelia & Hanáček, Pavel, 2018, An account of Ceropegia sect. Chamaesiphon (Apocynaceae) in Moçambique with new records and two new species, Phytotaxa 364 (2), pp. 111-135 : 125

Ceropegia nutans (Bruyns) Bruyns ( Fig. 13 )

This species was described in 2006 from the material cited below. These specimens came from two places on Mt Namuli in central Moçambique separated by some 20 km by road ( Fig. 13 ). At the first of these (Bruyns 9729) it was common in a bare patch between granitic rocks in shallow soil over a slab of granite. At the second (9741) it grew in very shallow soils on flat spots on steep granitic slopes with Aloe torrei Verdoorn & Christian (1946: t. 987) and Euphorbia mlanjeana .

The plant has more or less prostrate stem and branches, with finely linear leaves and quite prominent, slenderly lobed, solitary, nodding flowers that are purplish outside ( Bruyns 2006, fig. 1). On their inside, the lobes are pinkish purple becoming yellow near their bases and the corona is bright yellow. The flowers gave off no discernible scent.

According to our results ( Bruyns et al. 2015) where Bruyns 9729 was sequenced, C. nutans is very closely allied to C. plocamoides (represented by Bruyns 8749) both exhibiting an unsupported relationship to the Namibian endemic C. blepharanthera, ( Huber, 1961: 33) Bruyns in Bruyns et al. (2017: 35). This relationship seems unlikely because of their very different flowers and the unusual shape of the tuber in C. blepharanthera (Bruyns 1995, figs. 6, 7).

Figures

FIGURE 13. Known distribution of Ceropegia nutans.