Kalanchoe thyrsiflora (also known as Paddle Plant, Flapjacks, Desert Cabbage, White Lady, Geelplakkie, Meelplakkie, Plakkie) is a species of Kalanchoe, native to South Africa. A succulent plant producing a stalk about 1m tall, dying back after flowering. It forms a basal rosette of large, rounded, fleshy stalkless leaves, which are grayish-green with red margins, covered with a white powdery bloom. The inflorescence is terminal and erect with densely clustered thyrse-like panicles of greenish waxy flowers with yellow recurved lobes, narrowly urn-shaped. Flowering from autumn to spring. Common in grassveld amongst rocks.
Widespread over Asia and Africa, the genus is distinguished by its flowers, which have their parts in fours, the stamens being in 2 whorls of 4. The botanist Adanson first described the genus Kalanchoe in 1763. Other genera in the family are Adromischus, Bryophyllum, Cotyledon, Crassula, Dinacria, Grammanthes, Pagella, Rhopalota, Rochea and Tylecodon.
