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The taxonomy and nomenclature of the species of Kalanchoe (Crassulaceae subfam. Kalanchooideae) with comparatively thin, weak, scrambling stems are reviewed and discussed. This group of climbers is endemic to Madagascar, the present-day and probable historic centre of species diversity of Kalanchoe. Bar one species, K. schizophylla, the Madagascan climbing kalanchoes likely represent a monophyletic group. It is shown that this monophyletic group consists of eight taxa: K. beauverdii with three varieties (one of which is newly described), K. costantinii with two varieties (one of which is newly described), K. guignardii with two varieties (one of which is newly described), and K. scandens. Where required, the typification of some of the names previously published in the group is clarified, including through epi- and neotypification. The following new names are published here: K. sect. Invasores in K. subg. Bryophyllum, which includes the climbing kalanchoes in K. ser. Vilana, also newly described, as well as K. beauverdii var. pertinax, K. costantinii var. unguifera, and K. guignardii var. schistosepala. The similiarities between K. schizophylla and representatives of the distantly related K. ser. Vilana are restricted to their general climbing habit. They occupy unrelated positions within K. subg. Bryophyllum, occur in different types of habitat, and generally use different vegetative structures to climb into plants with which they grow socially.

Species included in Kalanchoe [subg. Bryophyllum] sect. Invasores (Crassulaceae subfam. Kalanchooideae), an infrageneric group naturally restricted to Madagascar, are, as the section name suggests, known to have several reproductive mechanisms that enable their successful establishment and spread in suitable climates in, and well away from, their natural habitats. Four species, which are particularly invasive, produce bulbils constitutively and copiously on dedicated pedestals that adorn their leaf margins or are concentrated towards the leaf tips, in the case of K. tubiflora. These species are: the predominantly pink-flowered K. daigremontiana, K. laetivirens, and K. sanctula, all with stem-peduncle transitions that give rise to distinct inflorescences, as well as K. tubiflora, which produces variously coloured inflorescences that indistinctly transition from the stem into a peduncle. Despite their apparent preferential, but not exclusive, reliance on asexual reproduction, several nothospecies involving these species have been described from southern Madagascar, and K. ×houghtonii, an artificially raised hybrid, has become naturalised on all continents bar Antarctica. Aspects of the taxonomy of these species and nothospecies are dealt with and arguments are presented in support of recognising K. laetivirens as a species, rather than as a nothospecies. The types of the names K. laetivirens and K. sanctula are no longer extant; both names are here neotypified. The geographical occurrence in Madagascar of K. laetivirens, and possibly K. ×houghtonii (=K. daigremontiana × K. tubiflora, known to have been artificially and independently produced in the USA and continental Europe), are discussed in detail. Kalanchoe ×descoingsii (=K. laetivirens × K. tubiflora) is described as a new nothospecies that was discovered in Madagascar where both parents grow sympatrically as a result of human activity.