Frithia

Dwarf, stemless perennials, forming mats, often sunken in the soil; rhizome and adventitious roots slightly thickened and fleshy. Leaves alternate, 5 -7 on each stem or branch, growing up to ground level, tiny (length < 10 mm), terete, with a distinct, flat, windowed top; sides of leaves papillate. Flowers solitary, sessile or subsessile from among leaves, +/- 25 mm in diameter, with a hypanthium. Sepals 5, resembling leaves, united into a short tube above ovary. Petals in several series, shortly connate at base, purple to white; opening mid-morning, open until mid-afternoon. Stamens +/- 3-seriate, papillate; with an outer series of epapillate staminodes. Nectary of 5 separate crenulate glands. Ovary slightly conical above; placentas parietal; stigmas 5 or 6, short, stout, acute. Fruit a 5- or 6-locular capsule, of Delosperma type but without valve wings; valves only rising to a +/- erect position, margins of valves recurved when open; expanding keels parallel, with small wings and diverging tips; very fragile, breaking up when wet, ripe or moistened or rolling as tumble fruit to disperse seeds. Seeds small, minutely tuberculate. F lowering spring to summer. D istinguishing characters: plants mostly underground with windowed tips visible; leaf surfaces with visible bladder cell idioblasts in rows; flowers with a series of filamentous staminodes; capsule 5- or 6-locular.