Ceropegia africana R.Br.

Rootstock producing a tuber, sometimes with secondary tubers. Stems mainly annual (varying greatly in robustness from the southern to northern range of distribution) 0.1-1 m or more long, poorly to vigorously twining, glabrous. Leaves somewhat fleshy, glabrous; petiole up to ±5 mm long; blade ovate to linear-lanceolate, margin entire, sometimes undulate. Flowers in few-flowered cymes; peduncles 2-15 mm long; pedicels usually less than 10 mm long. Sepals linear-lanceolate, 3-4 mm long. Corolla 20-25(-30) mm long; tube 12-16(-18) mm long, straight or slightly curved, with basal globose inflation ±4 mm diam., reduced to 1-2 mm above and expanded to ±5 mm at funnel-shaped mouth, glabrous outside and within, or with few descending hairs, greenish, striate with violet-brown; lobes linear, forming slender beak in bud, elongating as bud opens, linear from deltoid base, 6-12(-15) mm long, replicate, connivent-erect from slightly spreading sinuses, connate at tips, violet-brown on back, margins ciliate, keel with few dark purple hairs. Corona cup-shaped at base, fluted, forming 5 pockets with 2-3-crenate outer hairs externally; inner lobes fused to inner wall of cup, and 1.5 mm higher, laterally compressed broadly falcate, curving outwards, ± dorsally acute and ± grooved down inner face. Pollinia ±0.2 mm long (possibly larger in some forms).