Wednesday, June 9, 2010

About Adenium Flowering Plant

Adenium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Apocynaceae, containing a few species, best known being Adenium obesum, also known as Sabi Star, Kudu or Desert-rose. It is native to tropical and subtropical eastern and southern Africa and Arabia.

It is an evergreen succulent shrub in tropical climates and semi-deciduous to deciduous in colder climates, is also dependent on the subspecies or cultivar. Growing to 1–3 m in height, with pachycaul stems and a stout, swollen basal caudex. The leaves are spirally arranged, clustered toward the tips of the shoots, simple entire, leathery in texture, 5–15 cm long and 1–8 cm broad. The flowers are tubular, 2–5 cm long, with the outer portion 4–6 cm diameter with five petals, resembling those of other related genera such as Plumeria and Nerium. The flowers tend to red and pink, often with a whitish blush outward of the throat.

Adenium is a popular houseplant in temperate regions. It requires a sunny location and a minimum indoor temperature in winter of 50°F (10 °C.) It thrives on a xeric watering regime as required by cacti. Adenium is typically propagated by seed or stem cuttings. The numerous hybrids are propagated mainly by grafting onto seedling rootstock. While plants grown from seed are more likely to have the swollen caudex at a young age, with time many cutting-grown plants cannot be distinguished from seedlings.

The plant exudes a highly toxic sap which is used by some peoples, such as the Akie and Hadza in Tanzania, to coat arrow-tips for hunting.


Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenium


See also: Florist, Florists, Flower

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