Description :

• Dwarf, tufted perennials forming small clumps of densely clustered rosettes usually comprising 3 or 4 leaf pairs, with bases mostly sunken in the ground; rootstock somewhat thickened but occasionally tuberous in old plants
• Leaves opposite, ± free, spatulate to trigonously clavate, usually with truncate or rounded apex, covered with raised, white, green, copper, pink or reddish calcareous pustules, overlying tannin idioblasts, with a thick crystal layer absent in surface depressions
• Flowers solitary, sessile or shortly pedicellate, ebracteate, up to ± 20 mm in diameter; opening in late afternoon and closing at dusk
• Sepals 5 or 6, subequal, with pustules as on leaves
• Petals 1- or 2-seriate, narrow, mostly yellow or amber, but pink or white forms of some species are known, sometimes with a red central stripe
• Stamens with filaments sometimes bearded
• Nectary a sometimes crenulate ring
• Ovary inferior to half- or more superior; placentas basal or parietal; stigmas (5)6(-10), filiform to subulate
• Fruit a (5)6(-10)-locular capsule, of Titanopsis type; with prominent sutures; expanding keels subcontiguous and diverging towards awn-like apex, minutely toothed on inner, membranous margin; covering membranes membranous, semitransparent, not entirely covering locules; closing bodies 0
• Seeds many in each locule, subglobose, with small point, minutely tuberculate, pale
• x = 9 (1 report)

• Flowering in winter (western species) and late spring and summer (eastern species)

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Perennials forming rosettes of highly textured, pustulate, spoon-shaped leaves

Nomenclature:

• Titanopsis Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 178 (1926)
  • Friedrich: 130 (1970)
  • Herre: 300 (1971)
  • Smith et al.: 172 (1998)
• Verrucifera N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 278, 513 (1930)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 5, distributed in three main areas: In S Namibia they grow as far north as Lüderitz. To the east, the range straddles the Orange River in a broad north-south belt extending into Bushmanland. In central South Africa, the distribution extends from the Northern Cape into the Free State