MONTANA Compton, 1967
Synonym : Kalanchoe luciae ssp. montana (Compton) Tölken (1985)
Reinstated at species rank in Haseltonia 22: 64-72. 2016, by Gideon F. Smith, Neil R. Crouch & Estrela Figueiredo.
Type : Compton 29471, collected near Devil's Bridge, Emlembe Mountains, ca 5'500 ft alt.
Distribution : Swaziland.
Description by R.H. Compton in Journal South African Botany 33: 295. 1967 :
A robust succulent plant forming a rosette of basal leaves from which arise
the spreading or decumbent stems which bear a few distant pairs of leaves and
end in elongated interruptedly thyrsoid panicles with axillary branches.
Stem fleshy, minutely puberulous with spreading gland-tipped hairs.
Leaves simple, obovate to oblanceolate, rounded at the apex, tapering uniformly to a narrow
base, softly succulent, the margins sometimes slightly undulate, the surfaces
very minutely puberulous, diminishing in size along the stem into the panicle,
the largest c. 18 cm long x 7 cm wide above the middle.
Panicle about equal in total length to the sterile part of the stem, the axillary branches erect.
Flowers in dense spreading clusters, the individual flowers erecto-patent at
anthesis, the bracts and axes minutely glandular-puberulous.
Pedicels very short. Sepals free to the base, lanceolate, acute, minutely puberulous, c. 9 mm
long X 3 mm wide. Corolla greenish-yellow, slightly asymmetrical, ovoid,
scarcely narrowed at the throat, the tube c. 13 mm long x 5 mm wide, the lobes
erecto-patent, slightly turned upwards, c. 5 mm long X 2 mm wide, scarcely
acute. Anthers shortly exserted from the corolla tube. Carpels with slender
styles and minute capitate stigmas within the corolla tube.
Flowering time March and April.