Since yesterday's post was on Vinca minor, a member of the Apocynaceae family, I thought I would post today on one of Vinca's odder relatives, Pachypodium. I won't distinguish a species, however since I'm not so good at spotting the differences between P. lealii and P. brevicaule, though the former is more common in southern Africa and the latter is specific to Madagascar.
Pachypodiums are desert plants and you don't have to be a plant nerd to assume that the water the plant needs to survive drought is stored in the trunk. Below, you can see the flower is not too different from Vinca.
Though we think of elephants when we hear the word "pachy" - that's really Latin for "thick." Thus, pachyderm means thick skin. Pachypodium means thick foot (I suppose the "foot" in this case is the swollen trunk).
Pachyderm may refer to one of the pachydermata, an obsolete order of mammals which included: Elephants · Rhinoceroses · Hippopotami · Mammoths · Mastodons
ReplyDeleteImmediately made me go to Wikapedia to see the ref. above. Such similiar spelling, also the term swollen feet.