Orbea Haworth for an overview see Notes Orbea a - g
Orbea huernioides
With its characteristic pendant flowers, this species from NE Somalia benefits from a little extra heat. The plant shown is LAV24788 from Galgallo, 25 km. W of Carin.
Formerly Angolluma laikipiensis this species was amongst a number of Angolluma transferred by Peter Bruyns into Orbea. With a distribution entirely within Kenya the normal flower colour is the wine red form, the cream coloured form being much the rarer. Plants shown are; cream form - Mugie Springs, Mugie Ranch, road from Rumuruti to Maralal, just N of junction to Lake Baringo; wine form - Left; Kifuku, Right; 50km north of Rumuruti.
The plants pictured here are Left; DP7944D Welenchiti, 24km NE of Nazaret, Ethiopia, Right; from IAS seed is from Mojo, also in Ethiopia. The species can also be found in eastern Sudan and north western Kenya.
Although described by Haworth as a valid species, this is now widely considered to be merely a very dark variant of Orbea variegata.
From southern Mozambique, this species is closely related to Orbea speciosa. As the name suggests the stems have long tapering tubercles to 1.5cm.
The flowers of this species from Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe and the Northern Cape Province often fail to fully open giving them a Ceropegia like appearance.
This species which has been known variously over the years as Stapelia vaga, Caralluma vaga, Caralluma lutea ssp vaga, and Orbeopsis lutea ssp vaga, has now been placed by Peter Bruyns in Orbea. It's distribution is Angola, Namibia and the Northern Cape Province.
Found only in the Eastern Cape Province this species is closely related to Orbea speciosa. The plant shown comes from Tsitsa in the former Transkei.
With its stumpy thick stems this species is very variable across is distribution range of Mozambique, Zimbabwe and the Northern and Mpumalanga Provinces of South Africa.
As the name suggests this species is found only in the Namaqualand area of the Northern Cape Province and is closely related to Orbea variegata. The first plant shown is from Augrabies, whilst TS042 is from Lekkersing.
This attractive species has a very limited distribution, only being found around Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape Province.
From Zaire, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Rwanda, this species hugs the ground and forms large mats with sparkling orange - yellow flowers.
This species has a limited distribution and is found only in the Arusha Province of northern Tanzania. As the name suggests the flowers have a brief bowl shaped tube. The stems cluster and have rhizomatous runners.
Closely related to Orbea woodii this species from Tanzania, Kenya and Rwanda is avariable species and comes in two flower forms, both of which are pictured here, the yellow flowered form shown coming from Kirichwa, in Kenya. O. semota ssp orientalis is from the Taita District, near Bura, Kenya and has slightly smaller solid brown flowers.
Found only in KwaZulu-Natal, this species is closely related to Orbea longidens and Orbea macloughlinii. The plant shown is a Darrel Plowes collection DP3912.
This species has a wide distribution across Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. Sub-species foetida is found only in Ethiopia and differs form ssp sprengeri in having prostrate creeping stems and, as the name suggests, darker evil smelling flowers, this clone pictured is IAS 1800 ex GO211703 from Awash Station, Ethiopia.
As the name suggests this species from the grassland savannahs of Kenya and Tanzania forms large clumps by virtue of its rhizomatous underground stems. The plant shown is from the Nairobi Game Reserve in Kenya.