Description :

• Dwarf shrubs becoming woody with age, up to 250 mm high, to 250 mm in diameter; branches erect to spreading; internodes ochre to darker
• Leaves opposite, united at base, decurrent on stem, short, thick, ± triquetrous, often inflated, margins and keel ± serrate or with small teeth, surfaces rough to smooth; dark green
• Flowers 1(-3), terminal, shortly pedicellate or subsessile, often embraced by bracts
• Sepals 4(5), unequal
• Petals 2- or 3-seriate, white to purple
• Stamens arranged in a cone, filaments sometimes bearded; staminodes present
• Nectary a crenulate, dark green ring
• Ovary convex above; placentas parietal; stigmas 6-8, subulate
• Fruit a 6-8-locular capsule, close to Leipoldtia type, brown, markedly convex on top in most cases; expanding keels diverging, lacerate towards tips; valve wings absent or narrow, broadest in middle; closing bodies large, white, flat; covering membranes rising towards centre; distal closing devices 0
• Seeds rough-textured

• Flowering mainly in winter

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Fuit firm, brown, 8-locular

Nomenclature:

• Octopoma N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 72, 126 (1930)
  • Herre: 232 (1971)
  • Smith et al.: 374 (1998)
  • Hartmann: 44 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 8, in two separate areas in South Africa, one in northern Namaqualand, Northern Cape; the other in the Little Karoo, Western Cape
  • The species in this genus do not form a natural group since they have been included merely on the number of locules in the fruit (mostly 8)