Description :

• Evergreen shrub with a woody caudex and woody aerial stems
• Stems upright or inclined, compressed, becoming rounded below, brittle and woody (with secondary growth), marked with leaf scars, main axes simple, sparsely branched
• Leaves sword-shaped, crowded apically, distichous
• Inflorescence compound, terminal, pseudopaniculate, lateral branches short, terminating in binate rhipidia, these shortly stalked and subtended by a bract, enclosed below by coriaceous bracts; binate rhipidia each 2-flowered, spathes large, pale green, coriaceous; floral bracts membranous, shorter than spathes
• Flowers actinomorphic, sessile, tubular, tube shades of green, tepals closed throughout anthesis, green and yellow, unscented, with nectar produced from septal nectaries; perianth tube elongate, widely cylindric
• Tepals obscurely clawed, reverse of limbs velvety-pubescent
• Stamens : filaments slightly flattened, reaching to ± middle of tepal limbs; anthers oblong, subbasifixed, connective pouched below around filament apex, included, introrse; pollen monosulcate, exine reticulate, with supratectal gemmae
• Ovary globose, domed above insertion of tepals, enclosing enlarged septal nectaries, locules 2-ovulate
• Style filiform, shortly exserted from flower, shortly 3-notched apically
• Capsules fusiform, more or less woody
• Seeds tangentially compressed and shield-shaped, 1 per locule, smooth, surface granulate, testa often partially exfoliated
• x = 16

Nomenclature:

• Witsenia Thunb.
  • Thunberg: 33 (1782), as Witsena
  • Goldblatt: 117 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 1, Western Cape from the Cape Peninsula to Swellendam, sea level to 600 m, in marshes in peaty sandstone soil

Additional Notes:

• The long-tubed flowers produce large quantities of nectar and appear to be adapted for bird pollination
• Observations are needed to confirm preliminary reports of pollination by the malachite sunbird, Nectarinia famosa