Description:

• Sparsely branched shrubs, up to 600 mm high, branching at base; stems smooth, up to 5 mm in diameter
• Leaves slender, up to 35 mm long, free towards bases, acute, sharply 3-angled, smooth with serrated margins
• Flowers terminal, solitary, pedicellate, bracteate, up to 50 mm in diameter
• Sepals 5, unequal
• Petals bright yellow
• Stamens very short, broadening and connate at base; staminodes 0
• Nectary unknown
• Ovary 5-locular; placentas parietal
• Fruit a 5-locular capsule, of Lampranthus type, to 12 mm in diameter; expanding keels diverging and extending into an awn with broad wings; covering membranes covering locules; closing bodies 0
• Seeds large, up to 1.6 mm long, surface rough

• Flowering in early summer

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Shrub with distinctly curved branches
  • Leaves serrated
  • Flowers solitary, large and yellow

Nomenclature:

• Circandra N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 126 (1930)
  • Liede: 391 (1989)
  • Smith et al.: 318 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 1: Circandra serrata (L.) N.E.Br., in a small area in the Western Cape and has been collected from the surroundings of Ceres, Tulbagh and Villiersdorp, at low altitudes of up to 500 m