Adenia epigea is is a slow growing large, deciduous, succulent liana up to 5 m long noted for the huge conical or rounded above-ground caudex it produces, and caudices often deformed and monstrous with diameters exceeding 1 m are well documented. What former have been known as "The Red Form" is actually Adenia firingalavensis var. stylosa which have been raised to its own species by David John Hearn in 2007: Adenia stylosa.