Description:

• Erect shrubs sprouting from an underground lignotuber, distal branching sparse and clustered at nodal zones on stem
• Leaves linear to narrowly elliptic; petiole appressed to stem; dark stipules present, later lost; bud leaf colleter later a conical, acuminate apiculus shrivelling to a minute black spot
• Flowers in spikelets, each flower terminal within an involucre of bracts on a vestigial to minute stipe subtended by a leaf-like bract, spikelets arranged along peduncles; stipes persisting up to most or all of a year; involucre of 4 bracts distal on stipe, opposite and decussate, closely appressed, broadly ovate; floral receptacle ribbed or wrinkled
• Calyx forming a vestigial collar, slightly lobed
• Corolla white; petals free, elliptic to narrowly ovate, stiffly erect with crests lying against ovary
• Stamens free from corolla; filaments erect, with an adaxial basal ridge lying partly over top of ovary; anthers with a pale, apical, sterile lobe, thecae prominently divergent; pollen tricolporate
• Nectary and flower scent either 0 or unknown
• Ovary half- to nearly fully inferior; locules 2, lateral, each with a single ovule, wall between locules well developed; styles free, divergent, stigmas terminal
• Fruit unknown

Nomenclature:

• Linconia L.
  • Linnaeus: 216 (1771)
  • Sonder: 317 (1862)
  • Pillans: 130 (1947)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 2, Western Cape, rare in mountains from Ceres to Kogelberg, to Swellendam, extending to Humansdorp (SW Eastern Cape)