Ceropegia woodii
species of plant
Ceropegia woodii is a flowering plant in the dogbane family Apocynaceae, native to South Africa, Eswatini and Zimbabwe. It is sometimes treated as a subspecies of the related Ceropegia linearis, as C. linearis subsp. woodii. Common names include chain of hearts, collar of hearts, string of hearts, rosary vine, hearts-on-a-string, and sweetheart vine.
History
In 1881, the species was discovered hanging from rocks on Groenberg Mountain in Western Cape, South Africa, at an altitude of 1800 feet, by John Medley Wood, curator of the Durban Botanic Gardens. Thirteen years later, in 1894, he sent a living plant to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in the United Kingdom. The plant that had been sent to Kew subsequently flowered, providing the material for Plate 7704 of Curtis's Botanical Magazine published in 1900. The prolific botanical artist Matilda Smith prepared the plate, while the Kew taxonomist, N. E. Brown, produced a detailed description, naming the plant after its discoverer. Its trailing habit, neat appearance, and tolerance of neglect, made it an ideal plant for hanging baskets.
Description
It is an evergreen succulent trailing vine that grows to 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in height and spreads to reach up to 2–4 metres (6 ft 7 in – 13 ft 1 in) in length.
The public source identifies “Ceropegia woodii” as species of plant. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Ceropegia, woodii and species.
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Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 27, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q148960. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1881, 1800, 1894 and 1900.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ceropegia woodii” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.