Adenium swazicum bare stems

The pink Adenium swazicum flowers spread their five corolla lobes widely at the top of the cylindrical to slightly funnel-shaped tubes. The sepals are small, just visible at the flower base.

The soft, swollen stems are greyish, slightly rough only where leaves had dropped off in winters of the past. Lower stems remain bare as in the photo. New leaves grow annually only at stem-tips, rendering the plant leafy when in flower.

A substantial part of this plant is hidden below ground level in the bulk of its caudex, the plant’s storing facility for the not rainy day (Smith, et al, 2017; Frandsen, 2017; Smith and Crouch, 2009; iNaturalist).