Good Day

I am attaching an image of a plant that I have.

It has taken about five months for it to flower. I grew it from a cutting.

The flower has quite a pungent odor.

Please assist

Kindest Regards
JP

It appears to be a variety of Ceropegia (commonly called Starfish Plant). We have a list of different varieties here in our database with photos for comparison: https://garden.org/plants/sear...

Am thinking that's a Stapelia (carrion flower). Odour: most Stapelia are fly-pollinated.
I'd say that the flower colour of our ones was brown.
Kind of fits with where houseflies (at least) lay eggs.

Had them at various times in a greenhouse and in the house.
The odour was just a curiosity and never bothered us.

Stapelia have now been moved (by scientists) to the genus Ceropegia. One of the common names for many of them is "Carrion Flower" due to their malodorous scent. Here are a few photos from our database for comparison:

The taxonomic reorganization mentioned by Lin above is not reflected in Wikipedia (yet?).

If you're going to correct the nomenclatural usage of others, I believe you should provide more substantiation than "moved (by scientists)". I'm quite sure that there are frequently disagreements between botanists and between taxonomists as to what a currently appropriate classification (and hence nomenclature) for a group of plants should be.

Presumably, the focus of the academic research and the methodology used both affect the outcome of such research. I don't believe that taxonomy (classification) is simply a matter of right and wrong. There are, however, explicit rules for nomenclature (naming), whether they are followed or not. And even here, there may be grounds for disagreement.

If you're going to impose a particular classification, personally, I would rather you cite the actual source which you are using.

@SunnyBorders Charlie, I sure didn't mean to come across as though I was "correcting" your nomenclature usage and I do truly apologize if I came across that way.

I am not very knowledgeable when it comes to botany but the National Gardening Association uses the Catalogue of Life for classification purposes. The Catalogue of Life and the database here list Ceropegia as the Genus and Stapelia as a synonym; many plants in the Ceropegia genus used to be listed in our database as Stapelia but that name was changed when the Catalogue of Life updated. If botanists and plant scientists decide to change the genera back to Stapelia, our administrators will make the changes accordingly to our database here at garden.org.

I personally do not feel that Wikipedia (A "Free Encyclopedia that Anyone can Change") is a reliable source of information. Information at Wikipedia can be edited by anybody and everybody and I don't know if there is any administrator/overseer of that input.

Maybe one of our Plant Database administrators @zuzu, @Calif_Sue, @Kentpfeiffer, @eclayne, @Australis can better clarify the nomenclature and how our database works.

Again ... I apologize if I sounded like I was correcting you because that certainly was not my intention.

I have nothing to add to Lin's excellent explanation except these CoL listings for the former Stapelia genus. Please note that the genus no longer exists, and all of its former species are now species of the Ceropegia genus.

http://www.catalogueoflife.org...

A new way to become extinct?

Lin, thanks, but apologies not needed. I'd even feel that one is not relevant to the issue at hand.

I am assuming that Zuzu means that the Genus Stapelia no longer exists according to the the Catalogue of Life. I don't take that to be synonymous with a statement that the Genus Stapelia no longer exists.

I'm not disputing the NGA's choice of using the Catalogue of Life as the basis for its Plant Database; that's the NGA Owner's/Administration's choice. I suppose that I could even understand a requirement for all members of the NGA to use NGA Plant Database nomenclature.

But insisting that the Genus Stapelia no longer exist sounds like dogma to me.

I don't trust the Catalogue of Life as the accepted and only source. Stapelia is still accepted in several databases ie. tropicos.org, RHS, ipni, etc. The Catalogue of Life has only proposed changes without being peer accepted.

No one is claiming the Catalog of Life is the only source of taxonomic information about plants. That's not how science works in any event. It does, however, have three attributes that make it especially useful for the database here. It is extremely comprehensive, striving to list every known species of plant (and other taxon not relevant here) in the world. It is updated regularly. It is easily accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

I personally find some of the information contained in the CoL to be, let's say, perplexing. But, none of my favorite sources can match it in the three attributes listed above. If anyone knows of a source that can, please point it out.

Peer-reviewed accuracy is the only worthwhile pursuit, regardless of amount of content.

I can fully appreciate Kent's stated reasons for the NGA's choosing to use the Catalogue of Life as the framework for its Plant Database.

My complaint has been, to be frank, several of Zuzu's comments such as "Please note that the genus no longer exists, - - -"; that without qualifying the statement with "according to the Catalogue of Life".

Just in general, apologies with an "if" are known as conditional apologies are give the person apologizing wiggle room to not own it, or to back out of it. It's better to apologize full-stop.

For example: I apologize for making people re-think how they offer their apologies.

I apologize full-stop.

Hehe. One of the most important skills I ever learned was that I can apologize even if I'm not sure whether something happened.

To say I'm sorry for stepping on somebody's foot when I'm not sure whether did is 100% harmless in the situation that I did not cause the offense.

Only when you're a politician or a lawyer are apologies an admission of guilt. I think they are a sign of strength and maturity.

Take a look at this paper.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/...

I'm a little surprised by the sensitivity at the removal of the old genus, but if someone has a specific problem with the publication, let's talk about it.

If and when you ever need to find papers like this it's usually pretty to easy to visit Google scholar and find them. Much better to get at the source in my opinion, rather than debate the authority of the CoL (which I have historically found suspect on a few occasions).

Visit this site and enter "Ceropegia Stapelia revised", and the link above appears in the second position.

https://scholar.google.com

Very interesting, Baja.

Proposed reorganization published in 2017.

Even if the genus Stapelia is no longer used, "Stapelia" is still the most used common name.

That's what happened to Coleus (which is no longer in the genus Coleus) and Amaryllis (which is no longer in the genus Amaryllis).

It is very confusing!

At some point in the past couple of years, Coleus were moved from Coleus genus to Plectranthus genus but have now been moved back to Coleus! Coleus (Coleus scutellarioides)

There's still at least one species in the genus Amaryllis - Naked Lady (Amaryllis belladonna) but others that we call "Amaryllis" are in the genus Hippeastrum.

Many plants in the Chirita genus had previously been moved to genus Primulina but are now back to Chirita!

How does anyone keep up with so many changes and reversal of changes???