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Quaqua incarnata subs. tentaculata (Bruyns) Bruyns

Family: ASCLEPIADACEAE · Variety or form of Quaqua incarnata

Publication: Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 121(3): 369 1999.

Description

Quaqua incarnata subsp. tentaculata is a bushy succulent with greyish to purple-green stems up to 30 tall, with erect robust, conical tubercles topped by hard spines. The inflorescence, usually close to the stem tips, bears 4-10 often simultaneously opening flowers with very characteristic long corolla lobes. The flowers are usually cream coloured; they lack hairs in the throat, but have a zone of minute conical papillae on the disc around the tube.

Derivation of specific name. The specific epithet tentaculata comes from Latin, meaning ‘with tentacles’ and refers to the long thin corolla lobes.

Stems: 4-ribbed, 10-30 cm long, 1.5-2.5 cm in diameter, greyish to purple-green. Tubercles porrect, robust, conical. Spines hard.

Inflorescence: 4-10 flowered, usually close to the stem tips.

Flowers: Flower buds oblong. Corolla usually cream-coloured; Cl tube 2.5 × 4 mm,

campanulate, inside glabrous. Corolla lobes more than 5 times as long as broad in the middle (ca. 8 mm long, 2 mm wide), narrowly (ovate-) lanceolate, ascending, margins curved outwards, mouth of the tube finely papillose, papillae conical. Tube containing entire column. Corona yellowish, basally quite bowlshaped. Outer corona lobes shortly bifid, appendages broadly triangular. Inner lobes triangular.

Remarks: The characteristic long corolla lobes of Q. incarnata subsp. tentaculata remaining a constant feature throughout its geographical distribution, and even if it overlaps in distribution with Quaqua framesii, Quaqua incarnata, and Quaqua hottentotorum at various localities, with none of which it presents any intergrades.

Origin and Habitat

Quaqua incarnata subsp. tentaculata is endemic to the Northern Cape (Knersvlakte andLangeberge), Republic of South Africa.

Habitat and ecology: This species occurs on the Knersvlakte, a region edaphically somewhat different from the rest of Namaqualand.

Bibliography

Major references and further lectures

  1. Focke Albers, Ulrich Meve, “Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants: Asclepiadaceae” Springer Science & Business Media, 6 dic 2012

  2. Excelsa, Aloe, Cactus and Succulent Society of Rhodesia, 1988

  3. Raimondo, D., von Staden, L., Foden, W., Victor, J.E., Helme, N.A., Turner, R.C., Kamundi, D.A. and Manyama, P.A. 2009. “Red List of South African Plants”. Strelitzia 25. South African National Biodiversity Institute, Pretoria.

  4. Manyama, P.A. & Kamundi, D.A. 2006. Quaqua incarnata (L.f.) Bruyns subsp. tentaculata (Bruyns) Bruyns. “National Assessment: Red List of South African Plants” version 2017.1. Accessed on 2018/10/14

  5. Lorraine Harrison, “Latin for Gardeners”, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 2012