Erepsia

Shrubs or shrublets, erect or decumbent, often branching from the base; stems smooth. Leaves acutely 3-angled, always with mucro, +/- smooth, with a thin wax layer, often with hyaline dots. Flowers in many-flowered inflorescences, sometimes reduced to single flowers, sometimes almost sessile; often staying open day and night. Sepals 5. Petals free, +/- linear but spoon-shaped in E. pillansii (Kensit) Liede, white, pink or puce. Stamens arising from inner surface or top of calyx tube, either partly or completely covered by staminodes. Nectary a series of small teeth in a continuous ring or rarely in groups of five. Ovary concave on top, forming an hypanthium with stamens bending down into it; placentas parietal; stigmas 5(9-13), very small, +/- narrowly conical to almost globular. Fruit a capsule of +/- Lampranthus type, usually 5-locular, rarely 9-13-locular, woody, base funnel-shaped; expanding keels ending in awns; valve wings variable; covering membranes with lateral-marginal closing ledges; closing bodies 0. Seeds large (0.9-1.6 mm long), dark brown, surface rough. x = 9 (1 report). F lowering in summer. D istinguishing characters: shrubs with sharp-tipped leaves; flowers with distinct hypanthium into which stamens bend.