Pachypodium brevicaule

Pachypodium brevicaule

Family: Apocynaceae

Native to Madagascar. It is the smallest and more strange species in the genus. The plant has a woody thick caudex, brownish-grey, turnip-shape, smooth and can reach up 1 m in diameter and only 10 cm in height. The short stem resembles a stone or a potato and bears many rosette of leaves. The leaves narrow, elliptic, arranged in rosette, dark green, deciduous, pubescent in the bottom side and with a white vein in the upper face. Blooming occurs during the summer and the blossoms are borne at the apex of the stem.

Sowing instructions: It is easily propagated from ripe seeds, sown in a normal nursery tray, using a well-drained seed-sowing compost and silica sand mixture (silica sand improves drainage) kept moist and at a temperature of approximately 22ºC. The seeds need some degree of humidity for successful germination. One can generally expect seeds to germinate within 3–4 weeks (one month).

Locality: Ex Hort. Harvest: November 2024