Tropical Plant Database - Plant Details

This species is one of the most beautiful, drought-tolerant, tropical plant. Desert Rose is a shrub to 2m high with a thick, bloated trunk and woody base called caudex and many thick and short branches arranged in spirals. Clusters of shiny, green, leathery leaves appear at the ends of the branches. This is a beautiful and abundant flowering shrub with large bell shaped pink flowers all year long.
(Watson, L. and Dallwitz, M. J. 1992. The Families of Flowering Plants.)

Desert Rose is native to the Middle East and tropical and subtropical Africa, where it is found under different "subspecies" in countries like Sudan, Yemen, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
(Watson, L. and Dallwitz, M. J. 1992. The Families of Flowering Plants.)

Adenium obesum is an extraordinary tropical plant characterized by longevity, many hundred years of life span and great resistance to dryness.

(Information for this species compiled and recorded by Camelia Cirnaru, NTBG Consultant.)

We currently have 2 herbarium specimens for Adenium obesum in our collection. Click on any specimen below to view the herbarium sheet data.

• 016436 - collected by Tim Flynn in 1995
• 054115 - collected by Hank Oppenheimer in 2010