Description:

• Compact, tufted, dwarf, much-branched perennials with thickened roots
• Leaves opposite, connate at base, trigonous to triquetrous, narrowing towards the apiculate apex, 30(40 mm long, 10 mm wide, light greyish green to blue-green becoming tinged with red in sunlight, often with dense, black or green dots, surface ± smooth; stomata only slightly sunken
• Flowers 1(-3), terminal, shortly pedicellate, pedicels seemingly without bracts but bracts borne low down and difficult to see when whithered; up to ± 25 mm in diameter; opening late morning, closing evening
• Sepals 5, free
• Petals ± 1-seriate, purple to light purple with colour more intense at tips, or pure white
• Stamens with linear filaments; staminodes surrounding stamens in a central cone
• Nectary a crenulate ring
• Ovary with placentas parietal; stigmas 5, subulate, ± plumose
• Fruit a 5-locular capsule, persisting for many years on plants; broad expanding keels and broad valve wings indicate a relation to Titanopsis type of fruit, but deep locules and hook-shaped closing bodies agree with Ruschia type; valve wings narrow; expanding keels broad, sheet-like, toothed; covering membranes stiff; closing bodies small, often crenulate as in Hereroa
• Seeds subglobose, smooth, whitish

• Flowering spring and summer (E. wilmaniae (L.Bolus) Glen) or throughout the year

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Tufted perennials with thickened rootstock
  • Leaves bluish green
  • Flowers purple fading to pink or white towards centre, or white

Nomenclature:

• Ebracteola Dinter & Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 15, 24 (1927)
  • Friedrich: 44 (1970)
  • Herre: 146 (1971)
  • Glen: 203 (1986)
  • Hartmann: 29 (1996)
  • Smith et al.: 212 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 4, horseshoe-shaped distribution extending from central Namibia through the Northern Cape to central South Africa. Recent fieldwork has extended the distribution into the North-West, Free State and Gauteng