Ceropegia levyi (Obermeyer) Bruyns

levyi: named after Benjamin Levy (1896-?), pharmaceutical chemist and stapeliad collector from the Hwange area.

Small succulent, forming loose clumps 8-30 cm in diameter. Stems decumbent, 4-10 long, dull green to purplish; often with faint darker mottling, tubercles 4-10 mm long, deltoid, spreading, laterally flattened, joining at the base, forming 4-5 wing-like angles along the stems, tipped by slightly swollen leaf-rudiments. Inflorescences 1-3-flowered on the lower half of the stems. Flowers developing in gradual succession, 25-40 long and 20-25 mm in diameter, tubular-campanulate, papillate on the outside, purple-pink mottled with cream towards the mouth with 3-5 raised veins running down from the apices of the lobes; inside dark in the lower half, spotted maroon on cream above, papillate almost all over the surface. Lobes short, 5-8 mm long and 12-15 mm wide at the base, deltate, shortly acuminate, somewhat spreading. Corona 4-5 mm tall, 5 mm in diameter; outer lobes dark maroon, fused to to the base of the tube into an indistinct disc; inner lobes 3-3.5 mm long, red to brownish, darker towards the tips.

Occasional

Botswana, Caprivi-Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.