Ceropegia lodarensis (Lavranos) Bruyns, S. African J. Bot. 112: 424 (2017).

Alharbi, Samah A. & Al-Qthanin, Rahmah N., 2021, Taxonomic revision of Ceropegia sect. Huernia (Asclepiadoideae, Apocynaceae) in Saudi Arabia with three new combinations, PhytoKeys 174, pp. 47-80 : 47

4. Ceropegia lodarensis (Lavranos) Bruyns, S. African J. Bot. 112: 424 (2017).

Description.

Dwarf succulent forming dense clump. Branches 30-100 mm long, non-rhizomatous, erect to decumbent, grey-green mottled with purple-red; tubercles 4-10 mm long (including leaf-rudiment), 1.5-5 mm broad at base, conical, spreading, laterally flattened and joined into 5 angles along branch, each tipped with a soft slender acuminate caducous leaf-rudiment. Inflorescence arising in lower half of branch, usually 1 per branch, each bearing 2-10 flowers developing in gradual succession from short peduncle sometimes 3 flowers developing simultaneously, bracts filiform without lateral teeth, flowers with no foetid odour, rarely with faint unpleasant smell; pedicel 8-20 mm long, 1-2.5 mm thick, ascending holding flower facing upwards, tapering sometimes toward the point of flower attachment; sepals 8-18 mm long, 1-2.5 mm broad at base, attenuate. Corolla 30-50 mm diam., campanulate; outside smooth, cream-speckled with pale maroon spots uniformly scattered or concentrated on the upper half of corolla tube sometimes spots become darker especially on the upper half, with 1 heavy (+ 2-4 lighter) raised longitudinal veins running from lobes to base of tube; inside cream with irregular-shaped short maroon lines and dashes changing to concentric broken lines in lower half of tube or uniformly coloured with purplish-red, sometimes deep coloured areas concentrated between the lobes or corolla entirely uniformly coloured with purplish-red; corolla covered, except in lower third of tube with compressed conical papillae densely crowded and reaching maximum size around mouth of tube (up to 3 mm long and 1.2 mm base width), each tipped by minute apical acuminata bristle; tube 7.5-15.5 mm long, 11-22 mm broad at mouth, pentagonal; lobes 9-22.8 mm long, 9-14.25 mm broad at base, spreading with recurved apex or sometimes reflexed, deltoid, caudate to acute or acuminate rarely attenuate usually concave or form channel at tip, intermediate lobes 1.5-4 mm long. Corona without basal stipe; outer lobes (5-10 mm diam.) spreading on base of tube and fused partially to it, discrete to 5 lobes with each lobe rectangular rarely subquadrate crenate, dentate, mucronate, emerginate or bifid blackish-maroon; inner lobes 3-6 mm long, 1-1.5 mm at base, ivory white sometimes mottled with a few maroon spots at the tips or marked entirely with small purple spots adpressed to anthers in their lower half, then rising up connivent and then diverging towards apices, dorsiventrally flattened around laterally-broadened base becoming terete above and tapering gradually to a slender fine minutely-scabrous or smooth apex, at base with slightly inflated transversal dorsal gibbosity with rounded to truncate end, sometimes a conspicuous acute humb appearing in the staminal tube under corona base, rarely hook-like appendages grow from both sides of the base meeting above the guardrails. Pollinia 0.7-0.8 mm long.