Description :

• Small, herbaceous, caulescent perennials; offsetting at and near base; stems mostly erect, up to 250 mm long; roots succulent, terete
• Leaves succulent, short, hard, cauline, usually four-ranked in spirally arranged rows, squarrose-imbricate, ovate-squamiform; apex triquetrous, pungent-acuminate; lower surface keeled towards tip; margins and keel apex minutely scabrid
• Inflorescence a laxly flowered, simple, bracteate raceme, borne horizontally, up to 0.5 m long
• Flowers relatively large, borne secundly erect, narrowly tubular, upper one-third slightly decurved
• Perianth : tube red to orange, segments connivent, reduplicate-valvate, tips of segments scarcely separated, margins apically minutely crenulate-erose, yellow, upper tenth of segments dark green
• Stamens subequal, filaments light green
• Ovary with many axile ovules; style straight; stigma minute, included or exserted
• Capsule erect, cylindric, apically retuse, chartaceous when dry
• Seeds small, dark brown to black, irregularly angled, shortly winged
• x = 7

Nomenclature:

• Poellnitzia Uitewaal
  • Uitewaal: 61 (1940)
  • Hunt: t. 804 (1981)
  • Smith: 75 (1994)
  • Smith: 35 (1995)
  • Smith & Van Wyk: 97 (1995)
• Haworthia Duval
  • Duval: 7 (1809) in part
  • Dyer: 929 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Monotypic: Poellnitzia rubriflora Uitewaal, endemic to the Robertson Karoo in Western Cape