Description :

• Dwarf, compact, heterophyllous perennials less than 25 mm high
• Leaves opposite, largely connate and united into small ovoid bodies with a somewhat gaping fissure, with visible bladder cell idioblasts on surfaces, bright brownish red towards end of growing season, otherwise dark green to brownish green or yellowish green; gradually absorbed by following leaf pair and leaving whitish sheath; two leaf pairs develop per season on each of up to 20 branches per individual
• Flowers solitary, with bracts exserted from orifice, ± 25 mm in diameter; opening midday, closing in evening
• Sepals 6(7), shortly tubular
• Petals 2- or 3-seriate, white, pink or pale violet
• Stamens with filaments papillate at base, white, pink or pale violet; staminodes present, coloured as petals
• Nectary a crenulate ring
• Ovary somewhat convex with (5)6 ridges on top; placentas basal/parietal; stigmas (5)6, filiform
• Fruit a (5)6-locular capsule, of Delosperma type; developing directly on top of drying plant body; valve wings broad; covering membranes rarely present as narrow rims over locules; closing bodies 0
• Seeds many in each locule, small, compressed
• x = 9

• Flowering in winter

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Stemless perennials, with clusters of ovoid, papillate leaves
  • Old leaves forming papery sheaths enclosing the emerging young leaf pair

Nomenclature:

• Oophytum N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 413 (1925)
  • Herre: 236 (1971)
  • Ihlenfeldt: 303 (1978)
  • Smith et al.: 122 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 3, restricted to the quartz fields of the Knersvlakte north of Vanrhynsdorp in the Western Cape