Description :

• Dwarf, compact perennials, forming small clumps or mats, rarely forming large cushions up to 500 mm in diameter, with or without long shoots or trailing branches, or caespitose; with fleshy rootstock
• Leaves opposite, united in basal parts, in 1 or 2 pairs, trigonous, elongate, soft and fleshy, margins and keel with white, rarely pinkish teeth, greyish green, often hairy; surface with prominent elevations above tannin idioblasts, stomata in valleys
• Flowers solitary, sessile or shortly pedicellate, up to ± 30 mm in diameter; opening by midday, closing by twilight; strongly scented
• Sepals 4 or 5
• Petals 3-6-seriate, free, pale yellow to deep yellowish orange, rarely pink or white
• Stamens with filaments papillate towards base
• Nectary a crenulate ring
• Ovary : placentas parietal; stigmas (8-)10(11), subulate
• Fruit a (8-)10(11)-locular capsule, of Leipoldtia type with a thick semiglobose hairy base; expanding keels parallel, toothed, terminating in diverging membranous points; covering membranes stiff; closing bodies large, nearly closing the opening
• Seeds compressed, light brown
• x = 9

• Flowering late winter to early spring

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Perennials forming small clumps or mats
  • Leaves keeled, greyish green, often hairy, dentate
  • Flowers yellow to orange
  • Fruit 11-locular

Nomenclature:

• Odontophorus N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 12 (1927)
  • Herre: 234 (1971)
  • Hartmann 161 (1976)
  • Hammer 75 (1993)
  • Hammer: 59 (1995)
  • Smith et al.: 190 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 5, found in the vicinity of Steinkopf in the Richtersveld, Northern Cape