Acrodon

Compact, tufted perennials up to +/- 100 mm high, rarely creeping, internodes usually +/- hidden by sheathing leaf bases. Leaves opposite, crowded in basal rosette, sharply triquetrous, 30-50 mm long, keel and margins often with small teeth, spreading, reflexed, smooth, grey-green to dark green. Flowers solitary, bracteate, +/- 40 mm in diameter; opening midday, closing by evening. Sepals 5 or 6, nearly equal, ovate, sometimes with membranous margins. Petals 1-3-seriate, narrowly linear-lanceolate, often emarginate, white to pink, usually with a conspicuous pink to magenta centre line and sometimes also with darker-coloured margins and tip. Stamens: filaments connivent to erect, papillate at least at base, white to reddish above; anthers white; staminodes 0 to few. Nectary a crested, dark green ring. Ovary top conical; stigmas 5, +/- broadly subulate, short, plumose; placentation parietal. Fruit a 5-locular capsule, nearest Ruschia type, woody, valves opening incompletely; valve wings awn-like or rarely absent; expanding keels slightly diverging; covering membranes stiff, complete; closing bodies large, lens-shaped. Seeds pear-shaped, rough with microscopic +/- spherical knobs, dark brown to almost black. x = 9 (1 report). F lowering in early spring. D istinguishing characters: tufted or creeping perennials with sharply triquetrous leaves which are toothed on keel and at apex; solitary flowers usually with striped petals and white pollen; fruit with lens-shaped closing bodies.