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[SANS] San. gracilis, S. suffruticosa and S. schweinfurthii

Glad to find out today other people are out there!

More from the article by Horst Pfennig (Cactus & Succulent Journal of Great
Britain, 1979, p. 59)

The species which form runners above the ground also have more or less
cylindrical leaves with a thorn-like tip. At the end of such an "aerial
branch", up to 50 cm long, densely beset with scale-like leaves, the new
plant is formed, sending its roots in the ground and standing as if on
stilts. The region where such species occur is again East Africa. S.
gracilis, with leaves to 60cm long and not at all graceful, is not easy to
find in its coastel belt habitat which is nowadays very densely populated
and under cultivation. The studier S. suffruticosa was claimed by NE Brown
to occur in the idyllic and almost unspoiled vicinity of the impressive and
nearly unknown Nairobi River Falls. Specimens collected there in 1971
agreed with the description in leaf-characters and it was a surprise when
the plants came into bloom because the flower-characters did ot agree.
Subsequently the confusion was sorted out with the aid of dried material in
the Kew Herbarium, almost 70 years later.

S. gracilis is a native of Angola. As early as 1885 fibres obtained from
this species were shown at the Paris World Exhibition as being used by the
local tribes for the manufacture of strings and nets. The three to five
leaves of a shoot are cylindrical in cross-section, two-ranked and usually
arranged fanwise, up to 1.5m long and distinctly marked with bands of paler
and darker green. In contrast, S. schweinfurthii from Eritrea produces at
least twice this number of slightly shorter, uniformly dark green leaves,
lacking the hardened thorny tip, but terminating in a fleshy one with a
flattened seam. Both species are attractive and very suitable for the
succulent grower.

want any more?????

Frances Verrity
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