PRASINA Brown, 1904

Synonym : Kalanchoe figueiredoi Croizat (1937)

Type : Nyasaland [Malawi], cultivated in Kew Gardens, 6 February 1904, Brown s.n.

Distribution : Eastern and south-tropical Africa (northern Mozambique, southern Tanzania and Malawi).

Description (by Gideon F. Smith 2020) :

Perennial, small to medium-sized, low-growing, glabrous, branched from a rather woody base,leafy shoots tuft-like with a rosulate appearance, succulent, to 4 (-15) cm tall.

Branches sturdy, more or less erect, purplish to yellowish green, internodes generally short.

Leaves few to many, erect to spreading, hardly glaucous, light green, densely and somewhat regularly purple-spotted, spots sparsely or densely confluent into ribcage-like patterns, petiole absent or to 5 - 7 mm long, blade 4 - 8 (-14) x 2 - 4 (-5) cm, upper surface flat or convex, lower surface convex, obovate to spathulate, succulent, base cuneate, apex rounded, margins smooth or irregularly scalloped with softly rounded crenations along entire length.

Inflorescence a diffuse, terminal, branched, rather few-flowered cyme, 12 - 25 cm tall, pedicels (2-) 3 - 5 mm long.

Flowers 4 - 5 mm long, basally stiitate, hardly opening, dull green (base of tube) to white very lightly purplish-infused (upper part of tube), sepals purple, 1 - 1.5 mm long, acute, very much clasping the corolla tube, corolla tube 3 - 4 mm long, hardly 4-angled, basally conspicuously broadened, petals 1 - 2 x 0.75 - 1 mm, ascending.

Cytology possibly 2n = 34

Note :

1. Kalanchoe prasina and K. humilis occur sympatrically in eastern and south-tropical Africa. K. prasina is in allrespects the bigger species than K. humilis. 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.

2. K. prasina has also been found on the Montagora Hills and on Litenga Hill in the Songea District in the south of Tanzania beteen rocks in 1200 - 1410 m. It was distributed under the name 'Kalanchoe spec. Kenya', however it has never been collected there.