Leptadenia arborea (Forssk.) Schweinf.
Cynanchum arboreum Forssk., L. heterophylla (Delile) Decne.
Ara. (Egypt): Loweith. Tamahaq: Araenkoed, anoezan.
Climbing plant, glabrous, with woody stem, hermaphrodite, 0.5-1.2 m in height when growing on its own or pendant with stems up to 6 m. Leaves opposite, entire and variable: lower leaves cordiform and upper leaves linear (3-8 × 0.5-3.5 cm) ovate, elliptical or lanceolate, with acute or acuminate apices, cuneate or hastate base and petiolate (0.8-2.5 cm). Flowers pentamerous, arranged in pedunculate cymes (0.5-1.5 cm), axillary umbels. Flowers with pedicels 0.4-1.2 cm. Calyx 1.2-2 × 0.5-1 mm. Corolla white, 1.4-3.8 × 0.8-1.4 mm, with ovate-oblong lobes, pubescent; corona resembling the corolla, erect, with sinuous lobes c. 0.4 mm and an apical tuft of erect hairs. Gynostegium c. 1 mm in length. Fruit a narrow follicle (5-8 × 0.5-2 cm), cylindrical, glabrous or with warts, and dehiscent. Seeds flat, smooth and with tuft of hairs.
Flowering:
Information not available.
Fruiting:
Information not available.
Habitat:
Usually growing on trees, shrubs and rocky areas in warm and dry regions, sometimes even in desert areas (in that case, in the beds of wadis or shady areas).
Distribution:
It extends mainly through eastern tropical Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. In North Africa it extends from the mountainous massifs of the central and southern Sahara (Ahaggar , Tassili n’Ajjer, Tibesti, Aïr) to the Red Sea in the S of Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea.
Conservation status:
Rare species but widely distributed. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the updated red list of Egypt (Shaltout & Bedair, 2023) it has been considered as Vulnerable (VU).