PORTULACARIA
Portulacaria Jacq., Collectanea 1: 160. 1787.
Succulent, soft-wooded shrubs or small trees with stout branches. Leaves opposite, decussate, fleshy, obovate. Inflorescences axillary on the upper branches or along a single tall terminal stem. Flowers in dense fascicles, pedicellate, each subtended by a small scale-like bract
Sepals 2, broadly ovate, persistent. Petals 4–5, connate at base. Stamens 4–7, adherent to the petals, sometimes aborted. Ovary superior with a single basal ovule, style very short, stigma 3-lobed. Fruit indehiscent, thin-walled, 3-angled or 3-winged.
7 species
Portulacaria afra
Portulacaria afra Jacq., Collectanea 1: 160. t. 22. 1787; Crassula portulacaria L., Sp. Pl. 2: 406. 1762.
Soft-wooded, semi-evergreen upright shrub, up to 2 m tall. Stem purplish red, brownish, reddish brown, glabrous, loosely branched, internodes small, ca. 1.5 mm long. Leaves thick, fleshy, alternate but densely clustered near the stem tips in opposite decussate arrangement, triangular to obovate, nearly sessile, ca. 2 cm long and 1.5 cm broad, apex rounded or truncate, margin entire, glabrous.
Flowers clustered on short shoots, ca. 5 mm across, rose-pink, pedicels short. Fruits 3-angled, 1-seeded. (Flowers not observed)
