Kalanchoe thyrsiflora Harv., commonly known as paddle plant, flapjacks, dog tongue or desert cabbage, is a drought tolerant, white–frosted succulent of the stonecrop family that typically grows to 75 cm tall. Plants are native to South Africa, primarily in dry, exposed, rocky areas. Plants grow much shorter when planted in containers. Each plant features a basal rosette of large, fleshy, wedge–shaped or paddle–shaped, stalkless, obovate, gray–green leaves which are covered with a white powdery bloom. Rosette leaves are stacked like pancakes (hence the common name of flapjacks), with leaf edges extended upward in order to minimize sun exposure to the leaf surfaces. With sufficient sun exposure, however, the exposed leaf margins turn a showy red. Fragrant yellow flowers with reflexed petals bloom in spring in dense, cylindrical, spike–like clusters on tall leafy flower stalks which rise up from the rosette center in the year when the plant reaches maturity. The mother plant dies after flowering, but the plant will persist in the garden or container because of the offsets.
Genus name comes from the corrupted and unintelligible Chinese name of one species of these succulent herbs or sub–shrubs. Specific epithet means having its flowers in a thyrse (dense cluster around the flower’s axis).