Description:

• Reddish to yellowish white parasites, usually on roots of Proteaceae; monoecious
• Leaves scale-like, fleshy or sometimes linear
• Inflorescence a dense, often clavate spike, resembling a fungus, with female flowers below and male flowers above, rarely flowers all female, subtended by 1 coloured bract and 2 bracteoles
• Male flowers: perianth with 3 segments, 2-lipped; lower lip of 1 lobe; upper lip of 2 lobes; stamens 2, arising on upper perianth segments; anthers 2-thecous, dehiscing longitudinally
• Female flowers ripening before male, seated on a globular, fleshy receptacle; perianth segments 3, valvate, urceolate or tubular; staminodes 2, small or 0; ovary 3-merous, embedded in and fused to perianth tube, 1- or 3-locular, with 3 pendulous ovules; style columnar; stigma discoid or 3-lobed
• Fruit a pseudonut, almost spherical, inserted on enlarged receptacle
• Seed solitary

Nomenclature:

• Mystropetalon Harv.
  • Harvey: 418 (1838)
  • Griffith: 336 (1845)
  • Hooker: 31 (1856)
  • Harvey: 573 (1862)
  • Eichler: 124 (1873)
  • Hooker: 234 (1880)
  • Engler: 252 (1889)
  • Marloth: 171 (1913)
  • Harms: 312 (1935)
  • Visser: 44 (1981)
  • Hansen: 370 (1986)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Monotypic[: Mystropetalon thomii Harv.], Western Cape, almost exclusively southwest of Breede River