Description :

• Dwarf, compact perennials, forming small, cushion-like clumps; branches with 6(8 leaves
• Leaves opposite, slightly unequal, elongate-trigonous, spreading, up to ± 30 mm long, 8 mm broad, with few or no teeth on margins, smooth, old leaves persistent, shiny; no crystals in outer epidermal wall
• Flowers solitary, sessile to subsessile, ± 50 mm in diameter, ebracteolate; opening in afternoon, closing by evening
• Sepals 5, subequal
• Petals 3- or 4-seriate, golden yellow within, reddish outside
• Stamens collected into a cone, epapillate
• Nectary of 5 separate, greenish brown crenulate glands
• Ovary obtusely conical on top; placentas parietal; stigmas 5 or 6, filiform
• Fruit a 5- or 6-locular capsule; septa of fruit separated into two, their upper part not flat as in Faucaria but arching on top of capsule; valve wings basally connate with valves, moving upwards into an erect position when fruit opens and valves fold back
• Seeds pear-shaped, tuberculate

• Flowering during late autumn and winter

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Plants cushion-forming
  • Leaves smooth, soft, unmarked
  • Flowers yellow
  • Fruit with septa arching over expanded capsules

Nomenclature:

• Orthopterum L.Bolus
  • Bolus: 280 (1927)
  • Bolus: 130 (1928)
  • Bolus: 109 (1937/1938)
  • Herre: 242 (1971)
  • Smith et al.: 192 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 2, subtropical thickets of the Eastern Cape