Description:

• Dwarf, tufted perennials, or shrublets up to ± 200 mm high
• Leaves opposite, connate at base, ± finger-like and narrowing to a blunt tip, sometimes compressed laterally in upper part, ± free, lower apical part forming a hood or chin or resembling a hatchet or narrowing to a blunt tip, bright to dark green, often greyish or purplish green; surface smooth, covered with dark dots which are raised when leaves are not fully swollen; stomata not or only a little sunken, central water tissue milky-white from many intercellular spaces
• Flowers solitary to several in dichotomous cymes, pedicellate and bracteate, up to ± 40 mm in diameter; opening afternoon and evening; scented
• Sepals 5, unequal, acuminate
• Petals 2(4-seriate, yellow with reddish exterior, rarely white
• Stamens often papillate at base
• Nectary with glands separate or fused into a ring
• Ovary often somewhat concave above; placentas parietal; stigmas 5, filiform, longer than stamens
• Fruit a 5-locular capsule, close to Mitrophyllum type but closing bodies small, variable in shape; locules either deep or shallow and with a raised placenta; expanding keels diverging, without wings or membranous points, often narrow; covering membranes present, translucent
• Seeds small, pear-shaped, with concave depression, light brown
• x = 9

• Flowering mainly in summer

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Plants tufted, with tuberous roots
  • Leaves dotted
  • Flowers in cymes, on bracteate pedicels, petals yellow, opening during the afternoon or evening

Nomenclature:

• Hereroa (Schwantes) Dinter & Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 23 (1927)
  • Friedrich: 55 (1970)
  • Herre: 168 (1971)
  • Smith et al.: 214 (1998)
• Bolusanthemum Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 514 (1928)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 32, extensive yet discontinuous, widespread in S Namibia and in South Africa where it is found in all the provinces except Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal