Description:

• Low shrublets, sometimes with trailing branches with internodes usually hidden by leaves
• Leaves sharply triangular in cross section, sides ± parallel, with tiny pointed tips, smooth and firm in texture, very pale green to bluish green, unspotted
• Flowers solitary, short-stalked, rather large and white to pale pinkish or cream; bracts leaf-like
• Sepals 6, firm
• Petals long and narrow, rather stiff, white
• Stamens erect, sparsely hairy; staminodes few
• Nectary of 6 separate, but nearly touching glands
• Ovary: placentas parietal; stigmas 6
• Fruit a 6-locular capsule, of Delosperma type; robust, whitish, with dark persistent petal remains, not closing completely after first opening; expanding keels parallel; valve wings broad; covering membranes 0; closing bodies 0
• Seeds pear-shaped and nearly smooth
• x = 9

• Flowering in spring and summer

• Distinguishing characters:
  • Shrublets with pale grey-green, triquetrous, dotless leaves
  • Flowers white with stiff petals and 6 sepals
  • Old petals persist on the developing fruit

Nomenclature:

• Corpuscularia Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 186 (1926)
  • Dupont: 7 (1968)
  • Smith et al.: 278 (1998)
• Schonlandia L.Bolus
  • Bolus: t. 259 (1927)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa: Species 2, restricted to the Eastern Cape, where it occurs from around Port Elizabeth up to Grahamstown