Hereroa

Dwarf, tufted perennials, or shrublets up to +/- 200 mm high. Leaves opposite, connate at base, +/- finger-like and narrowing to a blunt tip, sometimes compressed laterally in upper part, +/- free, lower apical part forming a hood or chin or resembling a hatchet or narrowing to a blunt tip, bright to dark green, often greyish or purplish green; surface smooth, covered with dark dots which are raised when leaves are not fully swollen; stomata not or only a little sunken, central water tissue milky-white from many intercellular spaces. Flowers solitary to several in dichotomous cymes, pedicellate and bracteate, up to +/- 40 mm in diameter; opening afternoon and evening; scented. Sepals 5, unequal, acuminate. Petals 2 -4-seriate, yellow with reddish exterior, rarely white. Stamens often papillate at base. Nectary with glands separate or fused into a ring. Ovary often somewhat concave above; placentas parietal; stigmas 5, filiform, longer than stamens. Fruit a 5-locular capsule, close to Mitrophyllum type but closing bodies small, variable in shape; locules either deep or shallow and with a raised placenta; expanding keels diverging, without wings or membranous points, often narrow; covering membranes present, translucent. Seeds small, pear-shaped, with concave depression, light brown. x = 9. F lowering mainly in summer. D istinguishing characters: plants tufted, with tuberous roots; leaves dotted; flowers in cymes, on bracteate pedicels, petals yellow, flowers opening during the afternoon or evening.