Description :

• Prostrate to erect subshrubs with fibrous roots; branches weakly lignified, green parts of stem becoming dry and remaining on stem as a thick whitish layer, smooth
• Leaves decussate or becoming alternate in inflorescences, shortly fused towards bases, ± flat, somewhat triquetrous, or subcylindrical, with a thick wax layer which can easily be wiped off
• Flowers in bracteose dichasia, 20-40 mm in diameter; open in daylight
• Sepals 4 or 5, fused at base into a short tube
• Petals white, yellow or pink; petals, stamens and staminodes fused into a short tube towards bases
• Staminodes present
• Nectary consisting of 4 separate grooves
• Ovary with axile placentas
• Fruit a 4-locular capsule of Mesembryanthemum type, lower part funnel-shaped with deep locules; expanding keels extending to centre of fruit; covering membranes 0; valve wings present
• Seeds D- or kidney-shaped, ± 1.3 mm long, black, without or with indistinct crest, surface rough
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

• Flowering from spring through summer to autumn

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Soft, smooth, creeping (except P. sladeniana (L.Bolus) L.Bolus) stems

Nomenclature:

• Prenia N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 412, 413 (1925)
  • Friedrich: 93 (1970)
  • Herre: 256 (1971)
  • Gerbaulet: 25 (1996)
  • Smith et al.: 46 (1998)
• Phyllobolus N.E.Br. in part
  • Hartmann: 47 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 6, in the karroid areas of the Western, Eastern, and Northern Cape and in S Namibia