Description :

• Aerial, hemiparasitic shrubs reaching 2 m or more in height, glabrous; older plants forming much enlarged (up to 1 m across!) haustorial connections with host; younger branches often densely lenticellate, nodes of older branches usually greatly swollen
• Leaves opposite-subopposite, mostly oblong, often slightly falcate, highly variable in length (45-)70-100(-170) X (15-)25-35(-45) mm, rounded at apex, cuneate at base, dark dull green, with a slight waxy bloom, glabrous, thick, coriaceous, penninerved, veins often raised on lower surface; petioles 7-13 mm long
• Inflorescence a 2- or 3-flowered umbel, axillary, or often in pairs on swollen nodes of older branches; peduncles and pedicels stout, each ± 5 mm long
• Flowers 5-merous, tubular, radially symmetrical (tube without unilateral split)
• Corolla yellow, gamopetalous, glabrous; tube expanding slightly upwards, up to 40 mm long; lobes reflexed, up to 40 mm long
• Filaments arising at base of corolla lobes, curving out ± 90° or more at maturity, becoming reddish
• Style up to 80 mm long, near apex bending downward in a broad curve for 180° or more (as a shepherd's crook), dark red; stigma broadly ovate, ellipsoid
• Berry ellipsoid, 25 X 10 mm, reddish brown when mature

Classification Notes:

• An isolated genus without apparent close relatives

Nomenclature:

• Pedistylis Wiens
  • Wiens: 421 (1978)
  • Wiens & Tölken: 32 (1979)
  • Germishuizen et al.: 6 (1994)
  • Polhill & Wiens: 98 (1998)
• Emelianthe Danser
  • Danser: 54 (1933) in part

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Monotypic: Pedistylis galpinii (Schinz ex Sprague) Wiens, restricted to the lowveld of Mpumalanga and adjoining Swaziland and Mozambique