Trichodiadema

Shrubs with long, slender, trailing, arched branches or short-stemmed dwarf shrubs, 30-600 mm high; roots woody or tuberous and clusters of tubers may be present. Leaves opposite, slightly connate at base, +/- cylindric, up to 30 mm long, usually tipped with a tuft of spreading, bristle-like hairs forming a diadem, surfaces glistening, papillate, bladder cells elevated and pointed at one or both ends. Flowers solitary, with short pedicels, up to +/- 50 mm in diameter, without bracts. Sepals 5-8, papillate, and often with tuft of bristles at tips. Petals 1-several-seriate, white, cream, yellow, light to dark pink. Stamens and staminodes sometimes hairy near base, in a central cone. Nectary of 5-8 separate, crenate glands. Ovary flat or convex; placentas parietal; stigmas 5-8, lanceolate, much shorter than stamens. Fruit a 5-8-locular capsule, of Drosanthemum type; expanding keels contiguous, winged, diverging towards tips; valve wings broad and rounded; covering membranes present or reduced to a limb; closing bodies 0. Seeds pear-shaped, minutely warty and grooved, brown or yellowish. F lowering winter to early summer. D istinguishing characters: short- or long-stemmed shrubs; leaves crowned with a diadem of bristles; fruit with well-developed covering membranes.