Description:

• Compact, dwarf perennials, sparsely branched, with short branches often adpressed to ground, rarely tufted, with mostly hidden internodes; anisophyllous
• Leaves 4 or more to a stem, very fleshy, mostly distichously arranged, tongue-shaped or linear-lanceolate, often twisted; bladder cells often only along leaf edges, from several times as long as broad to only slightly longer than broad, those of each pair unequal and with apical portions often differing in shape, bright green or various shades of red or purple
• Flowers apparently solitary, axillary, ebracteate, sessile or shortly pedicellate, up to ± 70 mm in diameter; opening in morning and staying open all day
• Sepals 4
• Petals free or slightly united at base, linear-cuneate, bright yellow, rarely white
• Stamens with epapillate filaments
• Nectary 0
• Ovary half-inferior, convex or flattish on top; placentas parietal; stigmas 5(14, spreading to reflexed, plumose
• Fruit a 5(14-locular capsule, superficially similar to Leipoldtia type; valve wings 0 or very narrow; differing in broad-based shape and spongy-corky consistency of large closing bodies and mostly incomplete differentiation between expanding keel and expanding sheet; therefore tentatively placed with Mitrophyllum type
• Seeds relatively large and variable in texture
• x = 9

• Flowering in spring or autumn

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Perennials with very succulent
  • Leaves mostly distichously arranged, tongue-shaped
  • Flowers large, sepals 4, petals yellow
  • Fruit pale, multilocular with large closing bodies

Nomenclature:

• Glottiphyllum (Haw.) N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 311 (1921)
  • Herre: 164 (1971)
  • Hartmann & Gölling: 1 (1993)
  • Smith et al.: 144 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 17, southern parts of South Africa. They occur over much of the southern Cape interior, particularly the Little Karoo where it straddles the border between the Western and Eastern Cape. Outliers are found in the Tanqua Karoo and Great Karoo in the west and north, and further east in the Eastern Cape