English: Elephant's ear kalanchoe; Felt bush; Feltbush; Widow’s thrill.
Region:
Madagascar.
Habitat: needs full to partial sun, with intermediate to warm temperatures above 5 °C; prefers a mixture of equally loam and sand, gravel for drainage; intolerant of too much water will kill it.
Use: houseplant or outdoors in mostly frost-free landscapes.
BotanyShrub; evergreen; 1 to 2 m tall.
Stem: 1.5 m long; slender; knotted.
Leaves: olive green, triangular-lanceolate shaped, decussately arranged; margins doubly crenate, crinkled); 10 cm long, 5 to 10 cm wide.; bottoms glabrous, covered with a woolly hair towards the apex; leaf hairs are brown, and the tips of the teeth are darker; hairs on the stem, younger leaves, and petioles (leaf stalks) are white; concave upper surface when older.
Inflorescences: branched corymb; 50 to 60 cm high.
Flowers: short pedicels, stalks; small and yellowish; blooming from spring to summer.
Calyx: sepals oblong and acuminate; 7 mm long.
Corolla: tube; urn-shaped; 7 mm long.
Reproduction: asexually by plantlets on leaf margins; by seed, stem cuttings, leaf cuttings.
Defense: stress-limited defence, by cracking in the tissue of the plant, by hard amorphous silica.