Vanheerdea

Compact, dwarf perennials, forming dense clumps with up to +/- 40 very short branches each bearing a pair of leaves in the dry season; plants sometimes almost completely sunken into the ground; rootstock deep. Leaves opposite, united at base and pressed together forming subglobose or ovoid bodies, sometimes keeled or with windowed tips ( V. primosii), glabrous ( V. primosii) or minutely puberulous ( V. roodiae); margins and keels with short, stout teeth; characteristically light yellowish green, sometimes tinged with red or entirely flushed with purple. Flowers solitary or up to 3 together from between leaves, shortly pedicellate, bibracteate, up to 50 mm in diameter; opening in afternoon, closing at night; strongly scented. Sepals 5-9, unequal, with rounded apices. Petals +/- 3-seriate, orange-yellow to yellow. Stamens: filaments of inner ones papillate. Nectary a crenulate ring. Ovary slightly convex on top; placentas parietal or basal; stigmas 7-15, filiform, papillate. Fruit a 7-15-locular capsule, of Titanopsis type; conical, not closing entirely after seeds have been released; expanding keels +/- diverging, fringed with broad membranous valve wings; covering membranes with flat, flexible membranous wings; closing bodies 0. Seeds many in each locule, subglobose, smooth, brown. x = 9 ( polyploidy). F lowering late winter. D istinguishing characters: compact perennials; leaf pairs often forming bodies; leaves thick, yellowish green, with short, stout teeth on margins and keel; flowers single or up to three together, yellowish orange.