Compilation
Saintpaulia pendula

USES. None recorded on herbarium specimens. CONSERVATION This subspecies is currently restricted to very few submontane rainforest sites in the northern East Usambara Mts, with approximately 6 sites confirmed from herbarium data. Significant forest losses over recent decades are likely to have had an impact upon populations outside protected areas, particularly at the lower end of its altitudinal range. It is therefore assessed as Vulnerable (VU B1ab(iii)+2ab(iii)). The separation of this subspecies from subsp. ionantha var. ionantha can be difficult. In living material, the leaves are considerably less fleshy, but this character is likely phenotypic. Although plants of this subspecies sometimes develop long creeping stems, the leaves are often crowded and subrosulate in wild specimens; the trailing stems likely develop with age but plants appear able to flower when young. In cultivated material, the lateral nerves are highly conspicuous beneath, either being pale against a red-purple underside in those with anthocyanin or darker against a pale underside where this is lacking; this character can however be less conspicuous in the wild material, at least when dried. S. intermedia was previously separated from S. pendula on account of it being only “reluctantly caulescent” rather than strongly so, in the leaves being red-purple, not pale green, beneath, the hairs of the leaves being antrorse rather than erect, and the inflorescences being several-flowered, not single-flowered. Dr. Burtt however later described a variety of S. pendula, var. kizarae, which had slightly darker leaves and red-tinged petioles, 2–several-flowered inflorescences and was less strongly caulescent. This variety is clearly intermediate between S. pendula and S. intermedia. Subsequent wild collections have become available which demonstrate that stem development, degree of anthocyanin in the leaves and number of flowers per inflorescence are all variable across a continuum and are thus best considered a single entity. Var. kizarae was additionally separated from S. pendula by having more narrowly lanceolate calyx lobes. This can be discounted as there is significant overlap in this character between var. kizarae and plants previously attributed to both S. pendula and S. intermedia .