Description:

• Prostrate, decumbent or erect shrublets or shrubs; stems smooth, occasionally rooting at nodes; roots fibrous, rarely thickened
• Leaves decussate, shortly fused towards base or free, always equal and similar, terete, semiterete or 3-angled, blunt or tapering, occasionally dotted, up to 50 mm long; epidermis smooth or scabrid
• Flowers terminal or axillary, in dichasia or solitary, mostly pedicellate, rarely sessile; 7-70 mm in diameter
• Sepals 5
• Petals white, yellow, orange, red or purple
• Staminodes 0 or present, conically collected or spreading
• Nectary a low, crested ring
• Ovary with placentas parietal; stigmas 5(-7), ± triangular
• Fruit a capsule of Lampranthus type, usually 5-locular, woody, base funnel-shaped, occasionally with seed pockets; valve wings large, or rarely absent; expanding keels diverging; covering membranes stout; closing bodies absent but sterile funicles blocking exits of locules
• Seeds D- or pear-shaped, 0.8-2.0 mm long, brown to black, surface rough or smooth

• Flowering mostly in spring and early summer but throughout the year

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Creeping to erect shrubs or shrublets
  • Leaves smooth, cylindrical
  • Fruit with funicular hairs at distal exits of locules, covering membranes and valve wings present

Nomenclature:

• Lampranthus N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 71 (1930)
  • Friedrich: 64 (1970)
  • Herre: 190 (1971)
  • Hartmann: 44 (1998)
  • Smith et al.: 326 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species ± 220 described, the majority found in a broad band along the western and southern coasts of the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape. Further towards the east it grows near the Mthamvuna River mouth on the border between the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, also extends as far north as S Namibia