Description:

• Low, compact shrublets with prostrate to ascending branches, internodes well visible, old dry leaf sheaths persistent
• Leaves opposite, of 2 kinds: first leaf pair of season globose, grey-green; second united for a third to half length, deeper green, with conspicuous bladder cell idioblasts, base of latter developing into a papery parchment-like sheath enclosing first (assimilating) leaf pair of next season during dry period
• Flowers solitary, terminal, long-pedicelled, thus well exserted above a long leaf pair, up to 40 mm in diameter; opening at midday, closing in afternoon
• Sepals 5, subequal
• Petals 3- or 4-seriate, linear, violet-purple or white
• Stamens erect, inner ones papillate at base; staminodes 0
• Nectary a crenulate ring
• Ovary flat to concave on top; placentas parietal; stigmas 5, broad, plumose
• Fruit a 5-locular capsule, of Mitrophyllum type but with deeply concave covering membranes with a prominent distal bulge touching the protuberance reaching from base of expanding sheet into locule; closing bodies 0; valve wings ample; expanding keels flat
• Seeds ovoid or pear-shaped, smooth
• x = 9

• Flowering after good rains in spring

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Compact shrublets with weak, repeatedly branching stems
  • Resting leaf bodies conspicuous

Nomenclature:

• Meyerophytum Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 436 (1927)
  • Bolus: 345-346 (1958)
  • Herre: 208 (1971)
  • Smith et al.: 238 (1998)
• Depacarpus N.E.Br.
  • Brown: 71 (1930)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 1: Meyerophytum meyeri (Schwantes) Schwantes, restricted to the Northern Cape, from the Richtersveld to S Namaqualand