We had the pleasure of meeting local plant person Arun Mahalingam, who is particularly interested in Caralluma. Caralluma is a very interesting genus in the milkweed and oleander family Apocynaceae. Most species are found in African drylands, but like so many other genera, such as Commiphora, Acacia, succulent Euphorbias, Sansevierias, and indeed Moringa, the succulent milkweeds are found in an arc from southwestern Africa, northeastern Africa and from there to the drylands of India. Arun showed us a couple of remarkable Carallumas plus a lot of other stuff besides, including dramatic tree Euphorbias and lantern-flowered Ceropegias. Have a look at the photos for just a few examples.
Last year, we visited localities of Moringa concanensis in Rajasthan, near the northern extent of the species, and for Garima to covering the genetic diversity of the species, we needed to visit the southern extreme of its distribution. So this year we headed to Tamil Nadu and visited localities near Coimbatore, and in areas several hours farther afield. A special delight for me as to revisit the exact locality that I collected Moringa concanensis in 1998. We had the pleasure of meeting local plant person Arun Mahalingam, who is particularly interested in Caralluma. Caralluma is a very interesting genus in the milkweed and oleander family Apocynaceae. Most species are found in African drylands, but like so many other genera, such as Commiphora, Acacia, succulent Euphorbias, Sansevierias, and indeed Moringa, the succulent milkweeds are found in an arc from southwestern Africa, northeastern Africa and from there to the drylands of India. Arun showed us a couple of remarkable Carallumas plus a lot of other stuff besides, including dramatic tree Euphorbias and lantern-flowered Ceropegias. Have a look at the photos for just a few examples. The Moringa concanensis localities were just as lovely as I remembered them. The steep hillsides are clothed with dense dry tropical forest very much like that that surrounds the moringa collection here in Mexico. Instead of the semi-vining Bursera instabilis there was a green-trunked and semi-vining Commiphora caudata. Instead of columnar cacti, massive tree Euphorbia antiquorum poked through the canopy. Just like here in Mexico, Gyrocarpus is an important forest tree. Garima collected lots of samples for genetic analysis, and we’ll see what she finds.
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AuthorDr. Mark E. Olson is a researcher at Mexico's national university and an expert on the biology of the genus Moringa Archives
November 2018
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