Description:

• Prostrate perennials, sometimes compact, rarely erect and shrubby, with a prominent, vegetative, monopodial head in several species; main stem short, producing decumbent or prostrate branches, with distinct internodes between some leaf pairs
• Leaves opposite, not connate, crowded at end of stem and branches, apically triangular in cross section, basally rounded, rarely quilt-shaped, club-shaped or triquetrous, often mucronate; stomata not sunken
• Flowers 1-3, rarely solitary, terminal, up to 50 mm in diameter, on elongate, bibracteate or ebracteate pedicels; opening midday or afternoon
• Sepals 5
• Petals free, linear, yellow, purple or white in various combinations
• Stamens erect, often differing in colour from petals
• Nectary a crenulate ring
• Ovary with top raised into a crater-like rim surrounding stigmas or sometimes simply depressed in centre; placentas basal; stigmas 10-21, plumose
• Fruit a 10-21-locular capsule, of Leipoldtia type; with a prominent closing bulge formed by roof of locule; valve wings well developed; expanding keels parallel; covering membranes present; closing bodies large; sometimes as tumble fruit
• Seeds ovoid or pear-shaped, small, brown
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

• Flowering in winter

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Cushion-forming perennials, creeping or erect
  • Flowers often brilliantly multicoloured
  • Fruit 10-20-locular with large closing bodies, broad valve wings and covering membranes with large closing bulges distally

Nomenclature:

• Cephalophyllum N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 433 (1925)
  • Friedrich: 20 (1970)
  • Herre: 108 (1971)
  • Hartmann: 264 (1978)
  • Hartmann: 653 (1983)
  • Hartmann: 141 (1984)
  • Hartmann: 263 (1986)
  • Hartmann: 93 (1988)
  • Smith et al.: 256 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 33, in a broad band from Lüderitz to Aus in Namibia, stretching southwards through the Northern Cape and into the Western Cape, occasionally reaching the sea, and extending as far east as Oudtshoorn