Cotyledonoideae Berger (1930: 383) emend. Gideon F.Sm.

1. Crassulaceae

subfam. Cotyledonoideae Berger (1930: 383) emend. Gideon F.Sm. in Smith & Monro (2024: 295)

( Figs 1–4 View FIGURE 1 View FIGURE 2 View FIGURE 3 View FIGURE 4 ).

Type:— Cotyledon Linnaeus (1753: 429) , nom. cons. ( Turland et al. 2025: Art. 10.10).

Heterotypic synonym:— Crassulaceae subfam. Kalanchooideae Berger (1930: 383) emend. Gideon F.Sm. in Smith & Monro (2022b: 247). Type:— Kalanchoe Adanson (1763: 248) .

Taxa included:—Four genera (here listed in the chronological sequence in which they were described): Cotyledon Linnaeus (1753: 429) , nom. cons.; Kalanchoe Adanson (1763: 248) ; Adromischus Lemaire (1852: 59) ; and Tylecodon Tölken (1978: 378) .

Description:—Perennial, sometimes biennial or multi-annual, hapaxanthic, or rarely annual, herbs, subshrubs, or shrubs, or rarely small, somewhat to distinctly woody trees. Leaves decussate or more rarely in whorls of three or alternate, succulent, flat, sometimes folded or terete, sometimes densely white-waxy-pruinose or variously hairy, persistent or deciduous; margins crenate, dentate, or entire. Flowers tetramerous or pentamerous, often colourful, showy, erect, spreading, or pendent. Petals substantially or weakly united into a tube; corolla tube generally exceeding corolla lobes in length. Stamens twice as many as petals. Seeds small, often dust-like, costate.

Distribution:—Southern Africa [ Adromischus , Tylecodon ]; southern, south-tropical, and east Africa, to the Arabian Peninsula [ Cotyledon ]; Madagascar, some Indian Ocean islands, sub-Saharan and north Africa, to the Near, Middle, and Far East [ Kalanchoe ]. Some species and nothospecies of Kalanchoe and Cotyledon have become naturalised in several mild-climate parts of the world ( Smith et al. 2021, Smith 2023, Gallo & Smith 2024).