DECUMBENS Compton, 1967

Section Kalanchoe

Type : Compton 29407

Distribution : Southeastern Eswatini, Africa.

Description by Compton (in J. S. African Bot. 33: 294. 1967) :

Rootstock perennial.

Branches spreading horizontally becoming erect and ending in an erect inflorescence.

Leaves mainly on the horizontal part of the stem, succulent, numerous, crowded, scattered, seldom in pairs, erect, narrowly lanceolate-clavate, obtuse, up to ca 35 mm long x 5 mm wide above the middle, tapering gradually to the narrow insertion on the stem.

Inflorescence erect with a few pairs of reduced leaves near its base, mostly bare, up to ca 30 cm high, ending in a small subcapitate erecte panicle. Pedicels ca 3 mm long. 

Flowers : Sepals free to the base, ca 3 mm long x 1 mm wide. Corolla ca 1 cm long, ca 4 mm wide at its ventricose base, narrowing to a small throat at which the anthers and stigmas appear, the lobes patent, ovate, obtuse, ca 6 mm long x 3 mm wide, cinnabar-red. Carpels free to the base, ca 5 mm long, tapering gradually to minute capitate stigmas, ovules numerous.

Note :

Kalanchoe decumbens is related to K. rotundifolia. While Compton had published it as a species, it was subsequently included in the synonymy of K. rotundifolia, recently reinstated as a species by Gideon F. Smith in Bradleya 39, p. 163-171. 2021. It is likewise related to K. waterbergensis, originally also considered a form of K. rotundifolia.