Description :

• Dwarf, tufted perennials up to 100 mm high or shrublets with visible, woody internodes; sometimes with woody or tuberous rootstocks
• Leaves opposite, slightly united at base, clavate to semiterete, upper surface ± flat, lower surface rounded or slightly keeled, rarely with teeth, apical surface with hard, white tubercles
• Flowers solitary, terminal, pedicellate, up to ± 30 mm in diameter, without bracts; opening midday, afternoon or evening; scented
• Sepals 5, free or forming short tube above ovary in R. pillansii
• Petals 1-5-seriate, free, white to yellow
• Stamens with some filaments bearded at base
• Nectary varying from a ring to 5 separate, sometimes conspicuous, crenate glands
• Ovary slightly convex on top; placentas parietal; stigmas 5, subulate, somewhat plumose
• Fruit a 5-locular capsule, small, with sutures slightly raised and gaping; valves deltoid, reflexed when expanded; of Delosperma type but with diverging expanding keels and marginal valve wings; covering membranes often 0 or much reduced; closing bodies 0
• Seeds many in each locule, globose-ovoid, slightly compressed, ± smooth
• x = 9

• Flowering from spring to mid-summer

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Dwarf succulents, often with textured leaves
  • Flowers white to yellow
  • Pedicels ebracteate

Nomenclature:

• Rhinephyllum N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 92 (1927)
  • Herre: 264 (1971)
  • Smith et al.: 168 (1998)
• Peersia L.Bolus
  • Bolus: t. 264 (1927)
• Neorhine Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 22 (1930)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 12, occurs mainly in the Little and Great Karoos of the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape