| Stapelia schinzii var. angolensis in a 6.5cm pot Description:
Stapelia schinzii var. angolensis is known by its very handsome and highly curious dark red to maroon flowers with hairs along the edges of the petals. It is similar to var. angolensis, but has generally smaller flowers ( only about 8 cm in diameter) borne on more slender, scarcely toothed stems which adopt a creeping habit. This species and occasional species in other genera (Orbea ciliata, and Stultitia cooperi to name only the most striking) present one of the most fascinating phenomena of plant life, they have clavate and strongly vibratile hairs which form a fringe along the edge of the corolla lobes. These hairs hardly remain still and start trembling in the slightest breeze, possibly attracting insects. Stems:
The stems are creeping, green, mostly purple-mottled and up 6-7.5 cm long, 1.5 cm across, with winged angles, hairless or minutely roughened at first, tubercles decurrent, with a minute tooth at the base of the ultimately marcescent tips. Leaves:
Rudimentary, about 5 mm long, ovate, long-attenuate, delicately roughened, stipular rudiments yellowish. Flowers:
Usually solitary (a second bud aborting), borne on lower half of stem. Peduncle robust, glabrous. Pedicels 5 6 cm, delicately roughened. Sepals 5 8 mm, mostly glabrous. Corolla c. 8 cm cm across, inside hairless, greenish or reddish-brown beneath many close, purplish delicate wrinkles. Limb shallowly concave. Lobes ovate, long acuminate, 3.75 - 8.8 cm long, often caudate, outside more or less glabrous, inside glabrous, fringed with vibratile, purple, club-shaped glandular hairs. Outer corona-lobes dark red or black, usually oblong, c. 4 mm long pointed, sometimes ovate and mucronate, diverging. Inner corona-lobes c. 8 mm high, with erect 3-angled, inner horn and erect, free outer wing as long as the apical append age broad, narrowly ovate-pointed or rectangular, obtuse, irregularly dentate, free. Pollinia brownish, 1 x 0.5 - 0.6 mm. Fruits (follicles):
Glabrous. Chromosome number:
2n = 22 -
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