Description:

• Compact, dwarf, highly succulent perennials forming clumps with age; with dry, dormant stage; each stem annually producing 2 opposite leaves, enclosed by brown to black sclerotic sheaths derived from leaf bases of previous year; root system short, fibrous
• Leaves spreading horizontally to ± upright, shortly and obliquely united at base, soft and tender with hyaline dots, reddish in colour, ± 25 mm long, 5 mm broad, first leaf pair persistent, hidden inside previous year's sheaths, second pair only basally connate and short-lived; flowers breaking through connate base of last leaf pair
• Flowers solitary or in 2s or 3s, terminal, sessile between leaf bases, ebracteate, ± 25 mm diameter; opening at noon, closing in evening
• Sepals 5-7, unequal, roundish
• Petals 2- or 3-seriate, linear, purple, basally white
• Stamens with papillate bases, surrounded by staminodes (purplish black in D. luckhoffii (L.Bolus) Schwantes ex Ihlenf.)
• Nectary a dark green, slightly crenulate ring
• Ovary flat or pear-shaped at top; placentas parietal; stigmas 5-7, filiform
• Fruit a 5-7-locular capsule, of Mitrophyllum type; flat; without any closing devices; expanding keels broad, dark brown, ending either in an awn or a wing; covering membranes present; closing bodies 0
• Seeds pear-shaped, small
• x = 9 (1 report)

• Flowering from winter to spring

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Compact dwarf plants forming clumps with age
  • Leaves soft, often reddish, with large micro-windows
  • Flowers sessile

Nomenclature:

• Diplosoma Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 179 (1926)
  • Herre: 134 (1971)
  • Ihlenfeldt: 375 (1988)
  • Smith et al.: 98 (1998)
• Maughaniella L.Bolus
  • Bolus: 264 (1961)
  • Herre: 202 (1971)
• Maughania N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 389 (1931) not of J.St.Hil.

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 2, confined to a few localities in the northwestern parts of the Western Cape