Polymita

Glabrous shrubs up to 400 mm high. Leaves opposite, united for +/- half their length into a sheath with longitudinal lines, apical portion spreading, acute or mucronate, triangular in cross section, with margins and keel somewhat horny, often serrate; stomatal apparatus sunken, hidden under a dome of connate peristomatal papillae. Flowers solitary or in cymes, pedicellate, +/- 20 mm in diameter; bracts enclosing lower part of flower. Sepals 5, subequal. Petals often in 5 groups, filiform-linear, white. Stamens incurved, concealed by longer and many more white staminodes in 3 or 4 series. Nectary a crenulate ring. Ovary with placentas parietal; stigmas (8-) 10(-18), subulate. Fruit a (8-)10(-18)-locular capsule, with top elevated and white, and base +/- funnel-shaped; close to Ruschia type, but with valve wings and rather shallow locules; expanding keels abruptly diverging towards apex, with broad, terminal wings; covering membranes straight, without a rim at top; closing bodies large and white ( P. albiflora) or smaller and dark ( P. steenbokensis). Seeds smooth. F lowering in summer. D istinguishing characters: shrubby perennials with leaves fused at their bases, stem-sheathing, diverging at tips; flowers white; fruit 10-18-locular.