Cape Province.
Apocynaceae. Tribe Echitideae.
Pachypodium, Lindl.; Benth. et Hook. f. Gen. Plant. vol. ii. p. 722.
Pachypodium succulentum, DC., Prodr. vol. viii. p. 424; Fl. Cap. vol. iv. sect. 1, p. 517.
Pachypodium tuberosum, Lindl., Bot. Reg. t. 1321.
The species of Pachypodium figured in our illustration was first described by the famous traveller, Carl Thunberg, in the year 1794. Thunberg gathered his plants, on which he based his description, between the Gouritz and Sundays River. The name he gave to the species was Echites succulenta. Robert Brown, in 1909, surmised that the plant placed by Thunberg in the genus Echites would most likely constitute a distinct genus, and in 1830 Lindley confirmed this, and founded the genus Pachypodium upon, and gave an excellent figure of, this species of Pachypodium in the Botanical Register, at t. 1321, but gave it a new specific name, which is omitted from the Flora Capensis.
Our present illustration was made from specimens growing on the rockeries of the Division of Botany, Pretoria, which were presented by Mr. Silvesta of Port Elizabeth.