Annual herb; stem slender, simple, straight, 5–30 cm. high and 1–1.5 mm. in diameter, terete, glabrate or sparsely appressed hairy with downwarddirected hairs.. Leaves 5 to many in a simple rosette at the top of the stem, up to 7 cm. long and 12–16 mm. wide, 3–11(usually 7)-jugate, sensitive to touch, the leaflets closing together upwards; petioles and rhachis often thin, glabrous or slightly hairy; leaflets subsessile or with a short petiolule 0.5 mm. long, green or tinged with purple, the apical leaflets the largest, almost twice the size of the next pair, obliquely elliptic, up to 20 mm. long and 9 mm. wide, obtuse at apex, narrowly cuneate, the median leaflets oblique-to oblong-rectangular, the basal ones very small, up to 2 mm. long and 2 mm. wide; all membranous, paler green beneath and with up to 10 pairs of very clear nerves, glabrous or sometimes ciliate.. Flowers in peduncled l–5(–12)-flowered pseudumbels; peduncles slender, as long as or longer than the leaves, 2–7 (–10.5) cm. long, glabrous or sparsely appressed hairy; bracts very small, linear, 1—1.5 mm. long, acute, 1-nerved; pedicels up to 7 mm. long, glabrous or pubescent.. Sepals lanceolate, acutely acuminate, 2–2.5 mm. long, 3-nerved, often membranous at the margins.. Petals free, later adherent for two-thirds of their length above the free bases, spathulate, 2–2.5 times as long as the sepals, 5–6(–17) mm. long, white, creamy yellow or pinkish-mauve with a yellow base.. Filaments nearly free to base, the long filaments hairy, the short ones glabrous.. Styles of varying length in relation to the filaments, the flowers thus trimorphic heterostyled; stigmas bifid.. Capsule subglobose to obovoid, up to 4 mm. long and 3 mm. in diameter, longer than the sepals, darker and hairy at ridges, with 1–3 seeds per locule.. Seeds flattened-ellipsoid, up to 1.3 mm. long and 0.7 mm. wide, tuberculate, brown.. Fig. 2/A, p. 13.
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Leaves up to 7 cm. long; leaflets 5–11-jugate, the terminal pair 11/2–2 times as long as the next pair and the rest decreasing gradually in size, up to 20 × 9 mm., the smallest c. 2 mm. in diam., subsessile, membranous, translucent, obliquely elliptic, sometimes sparsely ciliolate otherwise glabrous or nearly so, with 2–6 (rarely more) pairs of rather spaced lateral nerves; rhachis glabrous or sparsely pilose.
Flowers white, pink or yellow, with slender glabrous or sparsely pubescent pedicels up to 6 mm. long, in 1–5-flowered pseudumbels; peduncle up to 8 cm. long, slender, almost glabrous.
Annual herb 5–30 cm. in height with a simple slender erect appressed-pubescent stem bearing a single rosette of leaves at the apex.
Sepals 2–2·5 mm. long, lanceolate, shorter than the capsule, 3-nerved, glabrous or nearly so.
Seeds 1–1·3 × 0·5–0·7 mm., flattened-ellipsoid, tuberculate, orange-brown or brown.
Stamens with 5 longer ones 2–2·5 mm. long and 5 shorter ones 1·5 mm. long.
Ovary 5-lobed; styles 1 mm. long, pubescent.
Capsule 3 × 2·5 mm. ellipsoid to subglobose.
Corolla yellow at base, mauve at tips.
Petals c. 5 mm. long, spathulate.
Damp shady often rocky places in open grassland or Brachystegia and Colophospermum mopane woodland; occasionally common in bare sandy ground, usually at elevations of 380-1,600 metres, extending to 2,650 metres in Kenya.
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