Description :

• Annual herbs with decumbent branches, the initial rosette developing into a rich, dichasial inflorescence
• Leaves flat to slightly channelled, strictly decussate with petiole dilated below and sheathing; epidermis covered with wax flakes
• Flowers solitary on long pedicels; open in daylight hours
• Sepals 5, united slightly beyond union with ovary into a saucer-shaped limb, unequal, narrowly spatulate from a broad base, inner ones with broad, membranous margins, longest one often longer than petals
• Petals 4- or 5-seriate, free, widely spreading, arising from saucer-shaped limb of calyx, their margins ciliate; yellow
• Stamens and staminodes many, from saucer-shaped limb of calyx, inner filaments bearded at base
• Nectary a flat ring with emarginate rim
• Ovary flat on top and sunk below rim of calyx; placentas parietal; stigmas 8-12, stout, 2 mm long
• Fruit a 8-12-locular capsule, shallow, slightly convex beneath; valves horizontally spreading when expanded, narrowly deltoid; expanding keels ± half as long as valve and subcontiguous into a central keel, very small covering membranes present; A. sabulosa has valves with a narrow membranous rim (valve wings 0 in the other 2 species); complete seed-pockets present at base
• Seeds globose, smooth
• x = 9

• Flowering in early summer

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Annual herbs with flat, stalked leaves
  • Pedicels long
  • Seeds many, a few developing in seed-pockets (paraspermy)
  • Flowers yellow

Nomenclature:

• Apatesia N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 12 (1927)
  • Brown: 80 (1928)
  • Brown: 262 (1932)
  • Herre: 76 (1971)
  • Ihlenfeldt & Gerbaulet: 457 (1990)
  • Smith et al.: 60 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 3, Western Cape, in a broad band parallel to the west coast from Vanrhynsdorp to Cape Town