Alepidea cordifolia B.-e.van Wyk

Robust, acaulescent, perennial herb with one or more rosettes of leaves and sturdy, erect, hollow, grooved, leafy inflorescences, 1.0-1.8 m high. Roots numerous, slightly fleshy, arising on thick, resinous rhizomes up to 25 mm in diameter. Basal leaves simple, large, up to 480 mm long, distinctly petiolate, petioles up to 200 mm long and 10 mm in diameter, lamina narrowly ovate to oblong, (90-)120-220(-370) mm x 35-60(-70) mm, cordate at the base, reticulate, margin regularly dentate, with each tooth protracted into a hair-like trichome 1-4 mm long; cauline leaves usually sessile, lamina ovate to ovate-oblong, variable in size, decreasing in size acropetally and gradually merging with the bracts, up to 120 x 50 mm, margin regularly dentate, with setae up to 3 mm long. Inflorescence scape up to 1.8 m, racemosely or paniculately branched from below the middle, with the lateral branches short or long, minutely hispid in the upper parts. Pseudanthia andromonoecious, numerous, 7 to 10-flowered, 812 (-15) mm in diameter, surrounded by 5 spreading or incurved bracteoles usually alternating with 5 much smaller bracteoles, bracteoles oblong, up to 8 x 3 mm, acute, coriaceous, keeled and nerved, green beneath, white above, sometimes with hispid hairs at the base. Flowers sessile; calyx lobes deltoid to ovate, ±0.2 mm long, sometimes minutely hispid at the base; petals oblong, ± 1 mm long, white, with apex narrowed, inflexed. Styles erect or spreading, short. Stylopodium flat, margin lobed. Fruit ovoid to suborbicular, ±3 mm long (excluding stylopodium), ±3 mm wide, glabrous, smooth or very sparsely muricate at apex only, ±terete in transverse section; mericarps isodiametric or slightly dorsally compressed, commissure narrow, ribs prominent, obtuse, with solitary, very large oil duct in each rib, carpophore undivided. Seeds planoconvex and slightly to fairly deeply sulcate, especially beneath the dorsal rib oil ducts, commissural face flat, slightly concave or slightly convex.