Description :

• Dwarf, tufted perennials, sparsely branched, with age forming prostrate stems up to 100 mm long, ± 4 mm thick; internodes 2-5 mm long, old leaves persisting for 8-10 years, shrunken but retaining their shape; roots wiry, thin, brownish, running laterally to 300 mm
• Leaves of the current season opposite, basally connate, ± equal, ± 10 mm long, 8 mm broad, 8 mm thick, boat-shaped, keeled, firm, greyish green to brownish green, glabrous, slightly shining when turgid, very smooth, with a thin wax layer, finely and vaguely maculate, margins slightly reddened
• Flowers solitary; pedicel up to 6 mm long, 2-2.5 mm thick, pale green with a reddish flush; bracts shaped like leaves but half their size; diurnal, expanding at noon, closing by late afternoon; scentless
• Sepals 6, equal, reddish green with thin translucent margins
• Petals 22-25 in a single series or with a second partial series, 4-5 mm long, to 1.5 mm broad, often obtuse, not widely spreading, mauve to rose-pink
• Stamens sparse, ± 16, shorter than staminodes, papillate; anthers whitish yellow; staminodes conically collected, up to 80, up to 4 mm long, recurved above, pink or white
• Nectary composed of ± 20 dark green, contiguous tiny glands forming a ring
• Ovary with basal-parietal placentas; stigmas (5)6(7), concealed within staminal cone, up to 2 mm long, free, pale green
• Fruit a 5-7-locular capsule of ± Lampranthus type, up to 6 mm in diameter (up to 10 mm when expanded), firm, blackish, flat above, half globose below; expanding keels parallel at base, divergent towards tips; covering membranes present, flat; closing bodies 0; valve wings 0
• Seeds ± 20 per locule, fattish-pyriform, very finely rugulose, dark brown

• Flowering late winter to early spring

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Perennials with persistent trailing stems
  • Old persistent leaves blackish
  • Capsules blackish

Nomenclature:

• Vlokia S.A.Hammer
  • Hammer: 255 (1994)
  • Smith et al.: 130 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 1, only a few populations on a mountain near Montagu in the western Little Karoo of the Western Cape