Description:

• Loose shrubs or shrublets with a compact centre and long shoots; internodes woody or fleshy, often articulated; branches often decumbent
• Leaves opposite, very large, 2 leaf pairs per season differing in length of basal sheath: first pair slightly united, flat above, rounded or keeled below; second pair a third to nearly completely united, forming a conical or cylindrical body, the connate one turning into a papery, parchment-like skin protecting the free one during dry months; minutely crystalline-papulose mainly towards tips
• Flowers solitary or in lax cymes, terminal, pedicellate, bracteate, up to ± 30 mm in diameter; opening at midday, closing in late afternoon
• Sepals 5, subequal
• Petals 3- or 4-seriate, white, yellow or pale violet-red
• Stamens collected into a cone and spreading later, basally only rarely papillate
• Nectary a crenate ring
• Ovary flat on top with 5(-7) prominent ridges; placentation parietal; stigmas 5(-7), subulate, often slightly plumose
• Fruit a 5(-7)-locular capsule, of Mitrophyllum type with or without covering membranes; with or without closing ledges or bosses
• Seeds ovoid or pear-shaped
• x = 9

• Flowering from February to November

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Shrubs with very large, oblong, floppy leaf pairs with papery leaf sheaths, borne on erect woody stems

Nomenclature:

• Mitrophyllum Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 181 (1926)
  • Herre: 214 (1971)
  • Poppendieck: 339 (1976)
  • Smith et al.: 240 (1998)
• Conophyllum Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 321 (1928)
  • Herre: 118 (1971)
• Mimetophytum L.Bolus
  • Bolus: 252 (1954)
  • Herre: 212 (1971)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 6, Richtersveld in the Northern Cape