Ceropegia africana

Beautiful succulent plant with a typically climbing behaviour, which tends to exploit other plants or vertical objects to obtain only physical support. Extremely slender herbaceous stems branch off from a perennial underground tuber, which reach up to one meter in height, "clinging" with an often whirling pattern. It has ovate, flat and pointed leaves at the top, with a deep three-dimensional central vein, and which take on pleasant shades of a soft and opaque green. The true beauty of this plant, characteristic for which it is so appreciated all over the world, are its flowers. Really unmistakable, when they bloom between spring and autumn they take on an umbrella shape, also similar to a parachute (hence the nickname "parachute plant") for its funnel tubes up to 7 cm long, which widen to join at the edges, creating at the tip a sort of cap with a very specific function: the petals close to trap insects for the time necessary for them to cover themselves with plenty of pollen to disperse it as much as possible!