Pachypodium baronii var. windsorii
Common names: none
The only red-flowered member of the genus. It is smaller than the typical variety and the peduncles are also much shorter. The spectacular red flowers with a white eye in the centre are ± 50 mm in diameter. The plant is found in northern Madagascar. It has all the makings of a good house plant, but unfortunately it is rare in the wild and known only from two populations. The globose or bottle-shaped base of the trunk reaches a diameter of 200 mm. The name commemorates Rev. R. Baron, a missionary in Madagascar from 1872-1907, who first collected this species. The name windsorii refers to Windsor Castle, one of the highest peaks in the northern part of Madagascar. This variety flowers from September to December. Plants grow on steep rocky gneiss slopes in full sun or in open dry forest in light shade. They flower profusely in spring.

Pachypodium densiflorum var. densiflorum
Common names: none
A succulent shrublet with a swollen stem that can attain a diameter of up to 2 m and a height of ± 0.7 m. It carries many short and upright, spiny branches. The flowers are yellow or sometimes tinted deep yellow and orange and appear in spring. The leaves are elliptic, dark green above and paler below. The plants grow in southern, central and northern Madagascar on granite outcrops at altitudes of ± 1 500 m. This variety is distinguished from var. brevicalyx by the shorter calyx of the latter. The corolla opens out almost flat, with a saucer-like depression in the centre in a deeper yellow than in P. rosulatum.

Pachypodium horombense
Common names: none
A succulent shrublet ± 1.5 m high with a swollen tuberous main stem and a number of short, spiny branches each bearing a rosette of leaves. They have a single long-pedunculate inflorescence that carries 3-10, broadly cup-shaped, chrome-yellow flowers between April and August. The flower has an inflated corolla that forms five large sacs into which the pollinator can crawl. The epithet refers to the Horombe plateau in southern Madagascar where the type specimen comes from. Here it grows on granite rocks at altitudes of 500-1 000 m. It is impossible to distinguish it from P. rosulatum when not in flower.

Pachypodium lealii
Common names: bottle tree (Eng.); bottelboom (Afr.)
A shrub or tree up to 8 m tall with a soft, succulent, bottle-shaped trunk, wide at the bottom, becoming narrower higher up and forked at the tips. The few leaves on the tips of the branchlets are narrowly oblong to egg-shaped and velvety. The plants grow on arid to semi-arid, rocky hillsides in north-western Namibia and south-western Angola. The long, pointed buds open into large frilly, white, sweet-smelling flowers, the underside of the petals and tube flushed with purple. Flowering time is from about July to September, before the leaves appear. The species is closely related to P. saundersii, but the two are separated by more than 1 000 km. The difference in pubescence of the leaves and the striking difference in habit are the only means to separate them. The epithet commemorates Fernando Da Costa Leal, an officer in the Portuguese Army and administrator of the province of Huila, who assisted Welwitsch during his travels in southern Angola.

Pachypodium rosulatum
Common names: none
A succulent, dwarf shrub. Mature plants are irregularly lobed with short, thick, tapered branches dividing again near the tips to form a coral-like crown usually shorter than 1 m, but wider than 2 m. The base becomes smooth and the upper half remains covered with sharp but weak conical spines. The sessile leaves are pubescent and paler green below. The name means rosetted, presumably referring to the tufts of leaves. It is the most widespread species in Madagascar where it is found along almost the entire length of the island. It grows in full sun in pockets of humus or in rock crevices and the yellow flowers are borne in spring. Flowering terminates the longitudinal growth, causing the plant to branch after each flowering event.

Pachypodium succulentum
Common names: dikvoet, ystervarkkambroo, bergkambroo, bobbejaankambroo, bobbejaankos (Afr.)
A a succulent shrublet with a partially underground tuberous stem and is up to 0.6 m tall. The narrow leaves are in tufts. Flowers consist of a narrow tube with flat, expanded corolla lobes. A few are carried at the tips of branches in pink to crimson colours, usually with darker stripes, rarely white. The flowers appear with the leaves, from September to December. This plant grows in arid, stony places, in dry scrub and is w idely distributed in the Western, Eastern and Northern Cape Provinces and western Free State (South Africa). There is considerable variation in corolla size and colour and it has been described under several different names. P griquense is merely a small-flowered form and P. jasminiflorum is a white-flowered form. The epithet means succulent.