Ceropegia is a genus of plants within the family Apocynaceae, native to Africa, southern Asia, and Australia. According to recent phylogenetic study, Ceropegia comprises more than 700 species in 63 sections. Ceropegia sect. Chionopegia is mainly distributed in the Himalaya region, Pakistan and India eastwards to China. About 18 Ceropegia species belong to sect. Chionopegia in China. 

During their botanical exploration in Luzhi River valley, Yunnan, researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) collected an unknown species of Ceropegia belonging to sect. Chionopegia. After literature review and morphological studies, the researchers confirmed it as a species new to science. They named it as Ceropegia eshanensis to refer to its type locality in Eshan County, Yunnan and published it in Taiwania.  

Ceropegia eshanensis is a perennial creeping to twining herb. It clearly differs from C. driophila and C. exigua by having densely verrucose lenticellate old stems, leaf blades ovate to elliptic, glabrous, base broadly cuneate, slightly decurrent, longer peduncles. It also easily distinguished from C. exigua by having longer petioles and interstaminal lobes divided into pairs of triangular teeth at apex. 

During the whole expedition, only one population of Ceropegia eshanensis was found to sporadically distribute in semi-humid evergreen broad-leaved forest and twining around branches in the thickets near Fawu Village in Eshan. And its habitat is inevitably disturbed by local villagers. The researchers thus put its conservation status as ‘Critically Endangered’ (CR), according to the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. 

Contact 

Department of Gardening and Horticulture, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, China  

E-mail: sehnjianyong@xtbg.ac.cn   

Ceropegia eshanensis  (Image by SHEN Jianyong) 

Ceropegia eshanensis  (Image by SHEN Jianyong) 

Ceropegia eshanensis  (Image by SHEN Jianyong)