Description :

• Low, compact, densely branched shrublets, or tufted perennials; main roots tuberous
• Leaves decussate, crowded, slightly connate, sickle-shaped, dull-green and bearing a prominent tooth or hump on lower distal surface ( R. dolabriforme ), or flat, brighter green, white-margined, boat-shaped ( R. rhomboideum ); epidermis ± smooth with superficial stomata, outer epidermal walls thick, with a crystal layer, central water tissue milky-white as in Hereroa
• Flowers 1-3, up to ± 40 mm in diameter, on dichotomously branched, bracteate, long, persistent peduncles; opening in afternoon or evening
• Sepals 5, subequal, lanceolate
• Petals ± 3-seriate, linear, yellow, reddish on back towards tips
• Stamens with glabrous or bearded filaments
• Nectary of 5 separate crenulate glands
• Ovary flat on top; placentas parietal; stigmas 5, filiform
• Fruit a 5-locular capsule, valves with high rims; close to Mitrophyllum type but with bipartite, flat, large closing bodies; locules deep; covering membranes complete with closing ledges at distal lower surfaces; expanding keels mostly basally separate; valve wings very narrow
• Seeds ovoid, brown to dark brown

• Flowering in spring and early summer

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Tufted perennials
  • Leaves sickle- or boat-shaped
  • Fruit with bipartite closing bodies

Nomenclature:

• Rhombophyllum (Schwantes) Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 180 (1926)
  • Schwantes: 179 (1926)
  • Schwantes: 16, 23 (1927)
  • Herre: 266 (1971)
  • Smith et al.: 228 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 5, this eastern Cape genus is practically confined to the subtropical thicket vegetation around Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth, and further afield near Graaff-Reinet in the Great Karoo, an outlying population has been recorded from the southeastern corner of the Northern Cape