Skip to main content

Air plant (Kalanchoe pinnata)

Cocor bebek or air plant (Kalanchoe pinnata) is plant species in Crassulaceae, tropical, long-lived and succulent herbs that are able to live in dry places and are usually on rocky slopes, famous by the method of reproduction through shoots that grow on leaves.

K. pinnata has a taproot, but propagation using cuttings makes this plant have fibrous roots that emerge from the ends of the stems. The roots are dark brown, while young roots are lighter. It grows tall and has many branches, rather square, green or purple, soft and broad.

Dlium Air plant (Kalanchoe pinnata)

Leaves have a length of 5-20 cm, width 2.5-25 cm, oval or round with corrugated edges and purple, blunt ends, base rounded, bare surface, bright green or purple, contains a lot of water and fleshy. The leaves are used for propagation which produces adventitious shoots.

Compound flowers with a funnel-shaped crown, red and attached petals, short and ovoid or lanceolate crowns, eight stamens, long pistil stems and rectangular-shaped scales. The fruit is purple with a white dot on the inside and cylindrical. The seeds are square shaped, small and have a slightly sour taste.

Air plants grow wild in gardens and edges of rocky trenches in the tropics. Popularly used as an ornamental plant for interior and exterior. This plant contains alkaloids, triterpenes, glycosides, flavonoids, steroids and lipids.

The leaves contain very active bufadienolida compounds including briophylline A and C which have antitumor and insecticide activity. This herb is also used for medication for headaches, fevers, coughs, urine laxatives, boils, inflammation, tonsils, stomach pain, rheumatic and hemorrhoids.







Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Saxifragales
Family: Crassulaceae
Subfamily: Kalanchoideae
Genus: Kalanchoe
Subgenus: Bryophyllum
Species: Kalanchoe pinnata

Popular Posts

Elephant bell gourd (Trichosanthes tricuspidata)

Elephant bell gourd ( Trichosanthes tricuspidata ) is a plant species in the Cucurbitaceae, stems grow elongated to propagate or climb, many branches, cylindrical in shape and green in color. T. cochinchinensis has stem tips or branches that twist to attach themselves to a support or other plant. It grows to climb to cover a support, usually on another plant, up to several meters and creeps along the ground to reach another support. Arrow-shaped leaves, split base, sharp apex and two wings at an acute angle, have many veins ending at a sharp edge, green and have a long petiole. Single flower is white. The fruit is round to oval, ends with a tail, young green and turns red with maturity, thin skin, thick flesh and reddish yellow, has a short stalk and hangs. The seeds are in the middle of the fruit. Seeds are white, oval and flat. Black coated seeds. Elephant bell gourd grows wild in primary and secondary forests, agricultural land, roadsides, watersheds, especially on slopes, damp a

Namib desert petal-bush (Petalidium namibense), previously confused with P. englerianum, P. rossmannianum and P. variabile

NEWS - Namib desert petal-bush ( Petalidium namibense Swanepoel & A.E.van Wyk, sp. nov.), previously confused with Petalidium englerianum , Petalidium rossmannianum and Petalidium variabile was established as a new species with a restricted range in the southwest, west and northwest of Puros in the Kaokoveld Centre of Endemism, northwestern Namibia. Currently, 41 species of Petalidium Nees von Esenbeck (1832) have been described in Africa. The main centre of diversity for the genus is in northwest Namibia and adjacent southwest Angola. Namibia is home to 31 species, while 13 species have been recorded in Angola, 6 in South Africa, and 33 species have been recorded in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Eswatini and Lesotho. During several expeditions to the Puros region, Wessel Swanepoel discovered an unknown Petalidium characterized by a dwarf shrubby habit, many stems from below or above the ground, white flaking bark (corky on older stems), long dendritic trichomes and flowers i

Matthias Asmuss pitcairnia (Pitcairnia asmussii) from Venezuela similar to Pitcairnia xanthocalyx Mart. 1848

NEWS - Matthias Asmuss pitcairnia ( Pitcairnia asmussii Gouda spec. nov.) discovered by Matthias Asmuss from Caracas, Venezuela, and cultivated at the Utrecht Botanical Gardens is similar to Pitcairnia xanthocalyx Martius (1848), but with shorter flower stalks with larger sepals and petals, and dimorphic, non-petiolate leaves. Pitcairnia L’Heritier (1788) is a mostly terrestrial genus widespread from Mexico to Argentina with a total of 217 species and about 52 species known from Venezuela. In 2015 Matthias Asmuss from Caracas collected a new Pitcairnia from Aragua, Venezuela. The specimen is kept in the VEN herbarium, but due to the chaotic period in the country, it may have been lost, only the photo remains. At Utrecht Botanic Gardens, Eric Gouda obtained a young specimen from the collection in November 2018 and it flowered in May (2024). This living specimen is next to the type specimen used for the description. Pitcairnia asmussii is an acaulescent or short caulescent plant, flow