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Apocynaceae is a family of flowering plants that includes trees, shrubs, herbs, stem succulents, and vines, commonly known as the dogbane family, because some taxa were used as dog poison. Members of the family are native to the European, Asian, African, Australian, and American tropics or subtropics, with some temperate members. The former family Asclepiadaceae is considered a subfamily of Apocynaceae and contains 348 genera. A list of Apocynaceae genera may be found here.
Pachypodium is a genus of succulent spine-bearing trees and shrubs, native to Madagascar and Africa. It belongs to the family Apocynaceae.
The history of the genus Pachypodium as a scientific classification began in 1830, when the genus was first used in a taxonomical system by John D. Lindley, who placed a single species, P. tuberosum, in it. Lindley believed that this species was identical with one identified in 1781 as Echites succulenta, which would make "Pachypodium" a taxonomical synonym of "Echites".
Plants belonging to the genus Pachypodium vary widely from each other in some aspects, but also share a number of basic common traits. Each species is adapted to the specific environment which it inhabits, but all species of the genus share certain anatomical and metabolic traits, reflecting their common evolutionary ancestry.
Didiereaceae is a family of flowering plants found in continental Africa and Madagascar. It contains 20 species classified in three subfamilies and six genera. Species of the family are succulent plants, growing in sub-arid to arid habitats. Several are known as ornamental plants in specialist succulent collections. The subfamily Didiereoideae is endemic to the southwest of Madagascar, where the species are characteristic elements of the spiny thickets.
Pachypodium ambongense is a species of plant in the family Apocynaceae. It was first published as a species of the genus Pachypodium in 1924 by the botanist Henri Louis Poisson.
Pachypodium baronii, the Madagascar palm or bontaka, is a flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae. It has the habit of a robust shrub with a spherical or bottle-shaped trunk. It has several cylindrical branches at the top.
Pachypodium bicolor is a species of plant in the family Apocynaceae.
Pachypodium habitats consist of isolated, specialized, micro–environmental niches, generally xeric, rocky, frost-free areas within parts of western Madagascar and southern Africa. Pachypodium species are often indifferent to the regional ecological, biotic zone of vegetation, a fact which explains some of Pachypodium morphology and architecture. The large scale vegetation zones are in some cases irrelevant to the micro-environments of Pachypodium, in the sense that the xeric niches may be embedded in larger mesic biomes.
Pachypodium brevicaule is a species of plant that belongs to the family Apocynaceae.
Pachypodium geayi is a species of Pachypodium that originated from Southwest Madagascar. It has a metallic grey pachycaul trunk and the leaves are thin and grey-green, with a bright pink mid-rib. The plant has white flowers. Pachypodium geayi is one of the largest of the Madagascar species.
The genus of the myrrhs, Commiphora, is the most species-rich genus of flowering plants in the frankincense and myrrh family, Burseraceae. The genus contains approximately 190 species of shrubs and trees, which are distributed throughout the (sub-) tropical regions of Africa, the western Indian Ocean islands, the Arabian Peninsula, India, and Vietnam. The genus is drought-tolerant and common throughout the xerophytic scrub, seasonally dry tropical forests, and woodlands of these regions.
Isalo National Park is a National Park in the Ihorombe Region of Madagascar, in the southwestern corner of the Province of Fianarantsoa. The closest town is Ranohira, and the closest cities are Toliara and Ihosy. It is a sandstone landscape that has been dissected by wind and water erosion into rocky outcrops, plateaus, extensive plains and up to 200 m (660 ft) deep canyons. There are permanent rivers and streams as well as many seasonal watercourses. Elevation varies between 510 and 1,268 m.
Pachypodium namaquanum, also known as halfmens or elephants trunk, is a succulent plant of Southern Africa. The genus name Pachypodium is from the Greek for 'thick foot', an allusion to its swollen base, while the species name namaquanum is a reference to Namaqualand.
The composition of Madagascar's wildlife reflects the fact that the island has been isolated for about 88 million years. The prehistoric breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana separated the Madagascar-Antarctica-India landmass from the Africa-South America landmass around 135 million years ago. Madagascar later split from India about 88 million years ago, allowing plants and animals on the island to evolve in relative isolation.
Pachylemur is an extinct, giant lemur most closely related to the ruffed lemurs of genus Varecia. Two species are known, Pachylemur insignis and Pachylemur jullyi, although there is some doubt as to whether or not they may actually be the same species. Pachylemur is sometimes referred to as the giant ruffed lemur, because although it and the living ruffed lemurs had similar teeth and skeletons, Pachylemur was more robust and as much as three to four times larger. DNA studies have confirmed a sister group relationship between these two types of lemur. Like living ruffed lemurs, Pachylemur specialized in eating fruit, and was therefore an important seed disperser, possibly for tree species with seeds too large for even ruffed lemurs to swallow. In the spiny thickets of southwestern Madagascar, they were also likely to have dispersed seeds evolved to attach to fur and be carried away. Unlike ruffed lemurs, the fore- and hindlimbs of Pachylemur were nearly the same length, and therefore it was likely to be a slow, deliberate climber. However, both used hindlimb suspension to reach fruit on small branches below them.
Pachypodium rosulatum, common name elephant's foot plant, belongs to the family Apocynaceae.
The flora of Madagascar consists of more than 12,000 species of plants, as well as a poorly known number of fungi and algae. Around 83% of Madagascar's vascular plants are found only on the island. These endemics include five plant families, 85% of the over 900 orchid species, around 200 species of palms, and such emblematic species as the traveller's tree, six species of baobab and the Madagascar periwinkle. The high degree of endemism is due to Madagascar's long isolation following its separation from the African and Indian landmasses in the Mesozoic, 150–160 and 84–91 million years ago, respectively. However, few plant lineages remain from the ancient Gondwanan flora; most extant plant groups immigrated via across-ocean dispersal well after continental break-up.
Pachypodium bispinosum is a succulent sub-shrub in the family Apocynaceae
The Madagascar succulent woodlands are a xeric shrublands ecoregion in southwestern and central western Madagascar. They are threatened by various human activities.
References
- ↑ Rapanarivo et al., 1999; Lavranos, 2004; Mays, Harry, 2005
- ↑ Lavranos, John, J. "Pachypodium makayense: A New Species From Madagascar". Cactus and Succulent Journal. 76 (2): 85–88.
- ↑ Mays, Harry. [European Union Honorary Representative] The Huntington Botannical Gardens' 2005 offering of International Succulent Introductions for the European Union. (Woodsleig, Moss Lane, St. Michaels on Wyre, Preston, PR3 0TY, UK: 2005)
- "Index of Botanist". Harvard University Herbaria Online. Archived from the original on 2008-05-17.
- Rapanarivo, S.H.J.V., Lavranos, J.J., Leeuwenberg, A.J.M., and Röösli, W. Pachypodium (Apocynaceae): Taxonomy, habitats and cultivation "Taxonomic revision of the genus Pachyypodium," S.H.J.V. Rapanarivo and J.J. Lavranos; "The habitats of Pachyppodium species" S.H.J.V. Rapanarivo; "Cultivation" W. Röösli. (A.A. Balkema: Rotterdam, Brokkfield, 1999) [The rest of the list is based on Rapanarivo et al.]