Pachypodium lealii v. saundersii (Star of Lundi).

This is another one of my wife's plants. Pachypodia are members of the dogbane (Apocynum, Greek for dogbane or poison to dogs) family from Madagascar and southern Africa. Pachypodium means thick-foot in Greek. Some people regard saundersii as a subspecies of the bottle tree, P. lealii (named for a Portuguese botanist, de Costa Leal); while others believe it is a separate species. Sir Charles Saunders was a plant collector and a British magistrate of southern Africa in the 19th century. This plant has several common names, but the one I like the best is the Star of Lundi (a town in southeastern Zimbabwe and the former name of the Runde River).

My wife has been growing this spiky little Star for about five or six years. The shell is from Hawaii (nerdy irony: Honolulu is antipodal to southern Africa). We repotted it three years ago and it has almost doubled in size since then. I should have taken a photo before it dropped its leaves around New Year's Day. Right now it looks like a cross between a cucumber and a voodoo doll. We thought that something was wrong with it when leaves started to shed, but apparently it is deciduous so that is normal. It has yet to flower. I just recently read that to make it flower, one shouldn't water it during the dormancy period; so from now on it is on the wagon. A few weeks ago I noticed several flowering Pachypodia in a nearby tailor's shop. I'll use my spy skills and get a stealth photo of her plants soon. I may even try to liberate one...

An interesting note about Pachypodia: I have heard that the sap is very toxic. There is an online account of a man accidentally ingesting a drop of the sap and he had a strong and unpleasant high for several hours.