Description:

• Low, slightly succulent glabrous perennials, with suckers arising from a thick laterally spreading root, each giving rise to a very short stem bearing a tuft of leaves and decumbent annual flowering branches
• Leaves alternate or subopposite, lanceolate-spatulate, obtuse or subacute, flat, decurrent and stem-clasping at base, entire, ascending, dark green, mesomorphic
• Flowers solitary, terminal, 40-60 mm in diameter, peduncle 30-100 mm long; opening by day
• Sepals 5
• Petals linear-attenuate, white
• Stamens and staminodes incurved; filaments papillose near base
• Nectary a crenulate ring
• Ovary 3- or 4-locular, receptacle subturbinate, slightly convex on upper surface; placentas axile; stigmas 3 or 4, subulate
• Fruit a schizocarp, with 3 or 4 bilocular, nut-like, woody mericarps, with a single ovule in each locule
• Seeds reniform, up to 2 mm long, verrucose, reddish brown

• Flowering from spring to early summer

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Leaves flat, smooth, slightly succulent, lance- to spoon-shaped
  • Fruit comprising 3 to 4 nut-like parts
  • Flowers white

Nomenclature:

• Caryotophora Leistner
  • Leistner: 289 (1958)
  • Herre: 106 (1971)
  • Ihlenfeldt & Gerbaulet: 457 (1990)
  • Smith et al.: 64 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 1: Caryotophora skiatophytoides Leistner, with a very restricted distribution to the west of Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa, in the Western Cape
  • It is known only from sandy flats with coastal fynbos vegetation in the Brandfontein area, near Bredasdorp