Description:

• Straggling or dense shrubs up to 1 m high, rarely procumbent or creeping, rarely with spines derived from pedicels, sometimes with branches rooting some distance from mother plant
• Leaves opposite, trigonous, rarely crescent-shaped and compressed, borne upright, greyish, with smooth surfaces; epidermal cells flat to somewhat elevated, stomata a little sunken
• Flowers mostly in many-flowered dichasia, rarely solitary, ± 25 mm in diameter; pedicel constricted under calyx, bracteate below middle, persisting and sometimes spinescent; open in day-time
• Sepals 5(6), subequal, with membranous margins
• Petals 1- or 2-seriate, linear-spatulate, obtuse, purple or pink, rarely white or yellow
• Stamens with filaments of inner stamens papillate; staminodes spreading, conically collected or absent
• Nectary a crenate ring
• Ovary slightly convex on top; placentas parietal; stigmas 10(-16), subulate-acuminate
• Fruit a 10(-16)-locular capsule, of Leipoldtia type; covering membranes wavy with closing rodlets at distal end; expanding keels radially spreading, contiguous towards base; valve wings broad; closing bodies large and white
• Seeds ± smooth, pear-shaped, ochre to light brown
• x = 9

• Flowering mainly in winter

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Sparse shrubs
  • Fruit 10(-16)-locular, whitish grey when closed

Nomenclature:

• Leipoldtia L.Bolus
  • Bolus: 256 (1927)
  • Friedrich: 67 (1970)
  • Herre: 194 (1971)
  • Hartmann: 1 (1983)
  • Hartmann & Stüber: 1 (1993)
  • Hartmann & Rust: 275 (1994)
  • Hartmann & Stüber: 353 (1994)
  • Smith et al.: 372 (1998)
• Rhopalocyclus Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 599 (1928)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 11, extends from near Aus, Namibia, down into South Africa to the region of Worcester, into the Little Karoo in the Western Cape, and eastwards to the Eastern Cape. Most species occur in the vicinity of the Richtersveld (Northern Cape)