Stapelia

Known globally as African starfish flowers or in your area as stapelia flower, people from the genus Stapelia are often indicated by their foul-smelling flowers similar to the odour of decaying meat. The fur, coloration and surface mimic rotting animal matter and attract mostly flies, which behave as pollinators. The strong carrion scent may also be identifiable in a good distance, especially on hot days. Remarkably, species for example S. erectiflora and S. flavopurpurea have sweetly perfumed flowers, but they're rare.

Description

Stapelias are low, perennial plants. The stems, their surface and branching make sure they are immediately identifiable. The stems are nearly always erect and therefore are usually evenly eco-friendly to red, with respect to the extent of sun damage. Only rarely could they be mottled with red-colored or crimson on eco-friendly.

The stems of the select few of species are greyish with more dark crimson within the grooves between your angles. Thickness from the stems differs from 5-50 mm across. Tubercles around the stems are laterally flattened and up and down became a member of into continuous rows, rendering the stems 4-tilted. Each tubercle bears a little leaf rudiment, which might vary wide from 1 - 6 mm. It's short-resided leaving a round scar in the tip from the tubercle. The pubescence from the stem surface is triggered through the elongation from the outer walls from the skin cells into slender papillae. Rapid papillae in certain types of S. schinzii, S. hirsuta and S. remota provide the plants a glabrous and glossy appearance.

The flowers are star-formed. Large-flowered species bear their flowers usually at or near the bottom of the guarana plant. The flowers from the more compact-flowered species are often spread at various levels around the stems, sometimes in the base. Flowers within an inflorescence generally open in succession. The flowers are very variable in dimensions (6-400 mm across), but there's usually little variation within the shape, almost always being almost flat and deeply lobed.

In many species, the corolla has relatively lengthy lobes along with a small, central, u . s . area. The top of corolla is characteristic. The outdoors is generally evenly papillate and also the inside transversely rugose (wrinkled). Two number of corona lobes can be found: an outer and inner corona.

The fruit (hair follicles) are pubescent, sometimes that contains a lot of seed products. Seed products possess a thin outer margin along with a tuft of fur (coma) helping with wind dispersal.

The title Stapelia was created by Linnaeus who referred to it in 1737. The title honours Johannes van Stapel, a 17th century physician and botanist.

Conservation status

Generally, stapelias will never be very abundant and therefore are scattered over huge areas. In Namibia Stapelia pearsonii shows up as rare. With an interim Red-colored Data assessment (August 2006) from the Threatened Species Programme (Teaspoon, SANBI), 20 taxa are indexed by the next IUCN groups: four Data Deficient (DD), 10 Least Concern (LC), three Near Threatened (NT) (Stapelia baylissii, S. clavicorona and S. tsomoensis ) and three Vulnerable (VU) (Stapelia obducta and both subspecies of S. praetermissa). The overall threat appears to become degradation of habitat, however for the majority of the listed species the risks are unknown.

Distribution

Stapelia is indigenous to the arid parts of tropical and southern Africa, in Botswana, Zimbabwe and particularly in Namibia and Nigeria where about 43 species occur. Outdoors this region they're also present in southern Angola, scattered in northern Zambia, southern Malawi and central Mozambique. Collections from southern Tanzania and Kenya are most likely of plants which have steered clear of from cultivation. Vegetation is present in almost all habitats, but mostly in well-drained soils within the drier regions. In Nigeria they're broadly distributed, but concentrated round the mountainous edge of the nation. It's absent in the sandy central areas of south africa, probably the most arid regions of the Namib and also the wetter, greater areas of the Drakensberg. Stapelia consists of numerous very localized endemics for example S. clavicorona and S. remota.