''Senecio cotyledonis'' ("stinkbos") is a species of succulent flowering plant in the

aster family Asteraceae () is a large family of flowering plants that consists of over 32,000 known species in over 1,900 genera within the order Asterales. The number of species in Asteraceae is rivaled only by the Orchidaceae, and which is the larger fam ...

, native to the

Western Cape The Western Cape ( ; , ) is a provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa, situated on the south-western coast of the country. It is the List of South African provinces by area, fourth largest of the nine provinces with an area of , an ...

and

Northern Cape The Northern Cape ( ; ; ) is the largest and most sparsely populated Provinces of South Africa, province of South Africa. It was created in 1994 when the Cape Province was split up. Its capital is Kimberley, South Africa, Kimberley. It includes ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

and to

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

Description

A branching, succulent shrub that reaches up to 1 meter in height. The stems are thick and succulent. The leaves are assembled around the tips of the branches. Leaves are small (50mm x 3mm), slender, terete, succulent and triangular. They exude a strong smell if damaged. The flower capitula appears in Spring and has yellow ray florets. It is large, solitary and appears in among the leaves (not held up freely in an inflorescence of numerous flowers, as in ''

Senecio aloides ''Senecio'' is a genus of flowering plants in the daisy family (Asteraceae) that includes ragworts and groundsels. Variously circumscribed taxonomically, the genus ''Senecio'' is one of the largest genera of flowering plants. Description Mor ...

'').

Related species

Several related and similar looking species occur in the region, such as ''

'' and ''

Curio corymbifer ''Curio corymbifer'', synonyms including ''Senecio corymbifer'' and ''Senecio sarcoides'', is a species of succulent flowering plant in the aster family Asteraceae, indigenous to the Cape Provinces of South Africa, Namibia and Swaziland. Descrip ...

'' (syn. ''Senecio sarcoides''). The flower clusters of ''Senecio aloides'' are held up on an inflorescence, above the leaves. Those of ''Curio corymbifer'' are on pedicels that are of a similar length to the leaves.

Distribution

This species favours clay soils in dry

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe Khoemana (also known as !Orakobab or Korana) word is a semidesert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is ...

areas of the

and

Provinces,

References

cotyledonis Flora of the Cape Provinces Flora of Namibia {{Senecioneae-stub