Pachypodium horombense Poiss.

DESCRIPTION:  is a succulent shrublet about 1.5 m high with a plump, bottle-shaped, main stem surmounted by a number of short, spiny fat arms each bearing a rosette of leaves and a single long-peduncled inflorescence that carries 3-10, broadly cup-shaped, horizontal, gold flowers during the warm months of the year. Stem: The cactus-like trunk and branches are covered with short paired spines. A plump tuberous base often called a caudex 50-70 cm in diameter, is also present, it is a swollen trunk-root transitional area that stores water. Trunk, 20-30 cm in diameter; bark grey-green, shiny, smooth, medium green, wood cream. Branches up to 10 cm in diameter; branchlets 20-40 cm long and 6-20 mm in diameter, not linear but variously twisted, bent and gnarled, covered with paired straight spines, 3-10 mm long, 1-3 mm in diameter at the base, basal part conical. Leaves: Thick, stiff, subsessile in a whorled tuft on branch tips elliptic to narrowly oblong 25-80 mm long 5-20 mm broad rounded at the apex, wedge shaped at the base. Petiole 1-3 mm long, pubescent. Deep green, glossy, with a pale green or yellowish midvein and secondary veins above and felted, white undersides with again paler midrib and dark green reticulate venation. Papery when dried. Completely deciduous in winter As temperatures cool and soil dries out in the tropical winter, the foliage drops away. Inflorescence: 4-11-flowered an an upright pubescent, peduncle, 10-60 cm tall, 3-8 mm wide. Pedicels 5-45 mm long, pubescent. Bracts pale green, oblong to obovate, 8-25 mm long 2-6 mm wide, acuminate at the apex sometimes hidden by the hairs.

DISTRIBUTION: Madagascar