Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 August 2014 | 6(9): 6282–6286 Note Caralluma R.Br. (sensulato) Notes on Caralluma adscendens (Roxb.) has been usually accepted to Haw. var. attenuata (Wight) Grav. & include about 120 taxa, with a wide Mayur. (Apocynaceae: Asclepiadoideae) ISSN African, Asian and southeastern Online 0974–7907 European distribution (Mabberley K.M. Prabhu Kumar 1, U.C. Murshida 2, Binu Thomas 3, Print 0974–7893 1993). It belongs to the subtribe Satheesh George 4, Indira Balachandran 5 & OPEN ACCESS Stapeliinae (tribe Ceropegiae, S. Karuppusamy 6 subfamily Asclepiadoideae and 1,2,5 family Apocynaceae), which has its centre of origin in Centre for Medicinal Plants Research, Arya Vaidya Sala, Kottakkal, Malappuram, Kerala 676503, India East Africa (Meve & Liede 2004). The genus comprises 3 PG Department of Botany, Deva Matha College, Kuravilangad, xerophytic succulent herbs, represented by 13 species Kottayam, Kerala 686633, India 4 and eight varieties in India. Of these, eight species Department of Botany, St. Joseph’s College Devagiri, Calicut, Kerala 673008, India and seven varieties are endemic to peninsular India 6 Department of Botany, The Madura College (Autonomous), Madurai, (Karuppusamy et al. 2013). The genus Caralluma Tamilnadu 625011, India 1 2 is closely allied to Boucerosia but differs by having
[email protected] (corresponding author), umurshi@ gmail.com, 3
[email protected], 4 george.satheesh@gmail. flowers arising in the axils of rudimentary leaves all com, 5
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[email protected] along the distal portion of the stem. The type species of the genus Caralluma is C. adscendens (Roxb.) Haw., a species originally described from peninsular India plant material has demonstrated intraspecific variability, (Meve & Liede 2002).