Saphesia

Spreading, glabrous perennial herbs, up to 600 mm wide, 200 mm high; branches procumbent to decumbent, often supported by surrounding vegetation, terete, up to 300 mm long, 3-4 mm in diameter, from a persistent tuberous base; branches, leaves and fruit grey green becoming purplish green with age; older subterranean branches becoming brown, longitudinally fissured; tubers oblong, divided, resprouting after a fire. Leaves alternate, crowded and rosulate at base at first, laxly arranged on flowering sideshoots, linear, oblanceolate, 45-160 x 6-10 mm, dorsiventrally flattened, becoming channelled in lower half, ascending, apices bending upwards. Flowers solitary, terminal, +/- 40 mm in diameter; pedicels slender, 30-90 mm long. Sepals 5, unequal. Petals 3- or 4-seriate, shorter than sepals, pure white. Stamens surrounded by staminodes. Nectary a low, crenulate ring. Ovary: placentas basal, in shallow locules; stigmas 5, filiform. Fruit a 5-locular capsule; opening apically when drying (xerochastic); floor of capsule distally widened to form a covered ring of semipockets. Seeds dimorphic, the smaller type probably sterile; compressed horseshoe- to bean-shaped, verrucose, dark brown; dispersal by scattering. F lowering in spring and early summer. D istinguishing characters: perennial herbs with tubers; leaves alternate, flat; flowers white; fruit 5-locular, cone-shaped, ends of valves split upon drying and remain so; seeds dimorphic.