Ceropegia juncea Roxb

Botanical name: Ceropegia juncea    Family: Asclepiadaceae (Milkweed family)

Malayalam Valakody

Marathi वेल खंटुडी Wel Khantudi

Telugu బెల్లగడ్డ Bellagadda

Botanical Description

Leafless Goglet Flower is twinning herb with tuberous roots. It looks almost leafless as the leaves are minute, in opposite pairs, very sparsely distributed in the bare stem. Leaves are small, fleshy and lance-shaped. Flowers are borne in few-flowered umbels. Flowers are large, goglet shaped, erect, beautifully variegated with yellow, green and purple. Mouth of the tube is much wider than other parts of the flowers. The united petals are light green in the lower half, dark green in the upper half.

Fower

Solitary or in cymes; corolla brownish-purple, tube 2 cm, lobes 5, with deciduous hairs near apex. Flowering from November-January.

Fruit

A paired follicles, linearly cylindric, apically narrowed; seeds many, coma silky. Fruiting December onwards.

Field tips

Stem often purplish-brown. Latex watery.

Ceropegia candelabrum var candelabrum

Ceropegia gardneri

Ceropegia hirsuta

Ceropegia juncea

Ceropegia spiralis

Ceropegia candelabrum var biflora