Source:
SSA
Synonym(s):
Micropterum Schwantes: 17 (1928a); Winkler: 20 (1957); Herre: 210 (1971).
Description:
Annual prostrate to erect herbs, with prominent, soft papillae. Leaves opposite, +/- spatulate, entire or occasionally pinnatifid. Flowers solitary, terminal, pedicellate, ebracteate, small or large; opening during day, or cleistogamous. Sepals 5, papillate. Petals 1- to 3-seriate, few (+/- 20) and short (2-4 mm long) or many and long, yellow or white. Stamens relatively few; staminodes 6 to many. Nectary of 5 separate dark green glands. Ovary convex above with 5 prominent ridges; placentas parietal; stigmas 5(6), filiform to narrowly subulate. Fruit a 5(6)-locular capsule, close to Mitrophyllum type; upper part of capsule distinctly ridged; with large expanding sheets; expanding keels parallel, large; valve wings broad; covering membranes small or 0; closing bodies 0. Seeds obtusely triangular, compressed, minutely tuberculate or smooth. F lowering from late winter to spring. D istinguishing characters: annual herbs with flat leaves; flowers white or yellow, sometimes cleistogamous; upper surface of fruit ridged.
Distribution:
Species 3, western parts of South Africa, from the Cape Peninsula in the Western Cape, northwards through Namaqualand to the Richtersveld in the Northern Cape.
Classification:
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