Leptadenia hastata Vatke
L. lancifolia (Schumach. & Thonn.) Decne., L. lanceolata (Poir.) Goyder, Cynanchum hastatum Pers.
Tamahaq: Tatoellâ, télékumbd, anoezan, tillikant.
Lianoid shrub, hermaphrodite, with trunks up to 10 cm in diameter and reaching 20 m in height. Leaves (2.5-8 × 1.5-4.5 cm) opposite, from glabrous to finely pubescent, greenish-ashen, highly variable: from elliptic to broadly ovate leaf blade (rarely hastate), from subacute to attenuated at the apex and from cuneate to truncate at the base. Flowers pentamerous, arranged in fascicles on a 6-10 mm long peduncle. Pedicels 2-5 mm. Calyx with sepals 1.5-2.5 mm, oblong-lanceolate, subacute and pubescent. Corolla yellow-greenish, sometimes orange, with a glabrous tube (c. 1 mm), and lobes 4.5 mm with white lanate indumentum. Corona resembling the corolla, erect or supported on the gynostegium, with sinuous lobes (c. 1.5 mm) and sublanate indumentum. Gynostegium 1.5 mm. Fruit a lanceolate follicle, 8-11 × 1-1.5 cm, black and glabrous. Seeds flat, smooth and with a tuft of hairs.
Flowering:
Information not available.
Fruiting:
Information not available.
Habitat:
This is a common liana in Sudanese-Sahelian savannahs, which grows on any type of soil, sometimes in wadis beds.
Distribution:
Northern tropical Africa, from Mauritania and Senegal to Ethiopia and northern Kenya. In North Africa, it grows mainly in the Sahel, reaching in the N to the Adrar region (Mauritania) and to mountainous massifs of the central Sahara, such as Ahhagar (Algeria), Aïr (Niger), Tibesti (Chad, Libya), the Ennedi Plateaux (Chad) and, in Sudan, in the mountains near the Red Sea.
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.