Description:

• Procumbent shrubs with a compact centre of short shoots and 4-20 trailing floriferous shoots with long, thin internodes
• Leaves opposite, scarcely fused at base, trigonous to falcate, dark green, often laterally compressed; stomata not sunken, crystal layer in outer epidermal wall reduced
• Flowers 1-3, bracteate
• Sepals 5
• Petals white, pink or bicoloured
• Stamens in a central cone encircled by many staminodes, brightly coloured apically
• Nectary a crenulate ring
• Ovary with parietal placentas
• Fruit a 10-locular capsule, of Leipoldtia type; turret-shaped with prominent subproximal elevations on covering membranes; expanding keels parallel; expanding sheets extensive

• Flowering autumn and winter

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Flat-growing perennials with long internodes
  • Leaf pairs laterally flattened
  • Fruit 10-locular, turret-shaped on top

Nomenclature:

• Hallianthus H.E.K.Hartmann
  • Hartmann: 1 (1983b)
  • Hartmann: 143, 167 (1983a)
  • Smith et al.: 370 (1998)
• Leipoldtia L.Bolus in part

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 1: Hallianthus planus (L.Bolus) H.E.K.Hartmann, Namaqualand in the Northern Cape and further south in the Western Cape in the Tanqua Karoo