HUMILIS  Britten, 1871

Synonyms : 

Kalanchoe prasina  Brown (1904), Kalanchoe figueiredoi  Croizat (1937)

Type : H. Waller s.n., Morrumbala, Prov. Zambézia, Mozambique.

Distribution : Eastern and south-tropical Africa.

Description (by Gideon F. Smith, 2020) :

Perennial, small, low-growing, glabrous, much-branched from a somewhat rhizomatous base, leafy shoots tuft-like becoming trailing, with a rosulate appearence, succulent, to 5 cm tall.

Branches thin, leaning, creeping or trailing, weak, purplish green, internodes 2 - 10 mm long.

Leaves few to many, erect to patent-erect to spreading, succulent, subsessile to sessile, light green to bluish sea-green, densely and irregularly reddish-blotched depending on age and exposure to insolation, bloom not waxy, petiole absent or t 5 mm long, blade 1 - 4 x 1 - 3 cm, upper surface flat or convex, lower surface convex, obovate to spatulate, base narrow, cuneate, apex ending in a rounded tooth, margins irregularly toothed with small crenations in upper half, reddish-infused, more rarely concolorous.

Inflorescence a diffuse, terminal, branched, rather few-flowered cyme, 8 - 15 cm tall, erect to leaning to one side, persistent for a long time once dry, peduncle light green to light green infused with purple, pedicels 4 - 5 (-8) long.

Flowers 4 - 6.5 mm long, flower base abruptly attached to pedicel, not basally stipitate, distinctly opening, light green (base of tube) to very light purple (upper part of tube) with a network of purple veins, calyx purple, sepals 1 - 1.5 mm long, apically slightly to strongly curved away from the corolla tube which is 4 - 5 mm long, rounded-4-angled, basally slightly inflated, petals 1 - 2.5 x 1 - 2 mm.

Note :

Kalanchoe humilis and K. prasina  occur sympatrically in eastern and south-tropical Africa.  The two species differ mainly in

- the size and the coloration of the leaves which are rather reddish-blotched and obovate to spatulate (K. humilis) and not purplish-blotched  and not near-orbicular to somewhat paddle-shaped in anthesis (K. prasina),

- the length of the inflorescence and

- the shape of the flowers which in K. humilis are basally abruptly attached to the pedicel, while those of K. prasina are distinclty stipitate basally.

In view of the indisputable resemblance of the two plants and the fact that discrepancies in size are of secondary importance, these differences do not make it necessary to classify the plants as two separate species.