Conicosia

Perennial or occasionally biennial herbs, usually with a short main stem ending in a tuft of leaves with mostly prostrate flowering branches; often with a tuberous rootstock. Leaves opposite, sometimes alternate, slightly stem-clasping, triquetrous or +/- terete, sometimes slightly concave on upper surface, up to 400 mm long, entirely without bladder cells; deciduous after fruiting. Flowers solitary, terminal, on long, ebracteate pedicels, variable in size, up to 130 mm in diameter, often with unpleasant smell; opening in afternoon and closing at sunset. Sepals 5, terete or subulate, from broad base. Petals free, in several series, linear, margins papillate, in various shades of yellow, rarely white above and salmon on lower surface. Stamens: many, filaments bearded at base; staminodes many. Nectary a low, weakly crenulate ring. Ovary concave or somewhat conical in centre above; placentas parietal or basal; ovules several per locule; stigmas 10-25, filiform. Fruit a 10-25-locular capsule, large, +/- xerochastic-seed dispersal dependent on separation of valves by desiccation; with two parietal seed pockets per locule; without expanding keels; each valve with a pair of thin, submembranous, wing-like, locular partitions on inner face. Seeds subglobose, often slightly keeled, smooth. x = 9. F lowering spring to early summer. D istinguishing characters: perennial or biennial; leaves elongated; flowers yellow or whitish yellow; fruit distinctive, cone-shaped, 10-25-locular, without expanding keels, with seed pockets.