Description :

• Compact, dwarf perennials, forming dense clumps with up to ± 40 very short branches each bearing a pair of leaves in the dry season; plants sometimes almost completely sunken into the ground; rootstock deep
• Leaves opposite, united at base and pressed together forming subglobose or ovoid bodies, sometimes keeled or with windowed tips ( V. primosii ), glabrous ( V. primosii ) or minutely puberulous ( V. roodiae ); margins and keels with short, stout teeth; characteristically light yellowish green, sometimes tinged with red or entirely flushed with purple
• Flowers solitary or up to 3 together from between leaves, shortly pedicellate, bibracteate, up to 50 mm in diameter; opening in afternoon, closing at night; strongly scented
• Sepals 5-9, unequal, with rounded apices
• Petals ± 3-seriate, orange-yellow to yellow
• Stamens : filaments of inner ones papillate
• Nectary a crenulate ring
• Ovary slightly convex on top; placentas parietal or basal; stigmas 7-15, filiform, papillate
• Fruit a 7-15-locular capsule, of Titanopsis type; conical, not closing entirely after seeds have been released; expanding keels ± diverging, fringed with broad membranous valve wings; covering membranes with flat, flexible membranous wings; closing bodies 0
• Seeds many in each locule, subglobose, smooth, brown
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

• Flowering late winter

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Compact perennials
  • Leaf pairs often forming bodies
  • Leaves thick, yellowish green, with short, stout teeth on margins and keel
  • Flowers single or up to three together, yellowish orange

Nomenclature:

• Vanheerdea L.Bolus ex H.E.K.Hartmann
  • Bolus: 136 (1938)
  • Herre: 304 (1971)
  • Hartmann: 15 (1992)
  • Hartmann: 5 (1992)
  • Smith et al.: 198 (1998)
• Rimaria N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 134 (1926) illegitimate name
  • Bolus: 66 (1937)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 2, Bushmanland, Northern Cape