Bridsonia chamaedendrum (Kuntze) Verstraete & A.e.van Wyk

Deciduous clonal geofrutices with ramets 5-16 cm tall; underground rhizomes ± horizontal, woody, up to 6 cm thick; plants glabrous to sparsely or densely strigose, but organ surfaces in hairy forms always clearly visible beneath the indumentum. Leaves opposite, simple, chartaceous or subcoriaceous, glossy in glabrous form; lamina, (12)30-60(130) x (5)10-20(35) mm, obovate-oblanceolate or rarely elliptic; apex obtuse and usually minutely mucronate, base cuneate to attenuate; glabrous or setulose; petioles distinct, 3-10 mm long; stipules 3-5 mm long, triangular with apex shortly subulate, basally vaginate-connate for c. 1 mm, becoming scarious at older nodes, densely and conspicuously white-hairy inside, hairs up to 2.5 mm long. Inflorescences axillary in the lower, often leafless axils just above ground level, opposite, three to eight flowered; peduncle 1-5 mm long with axes short and flowers mostly arising near tip of peduncle; bracts c. 1.0 x 0.5 mm, linear, usually present at one or two basal nodes, often absent elsewhere. Flowers pentamerous; pedicels 5-12 mm long. Calyx tube campanulate, (1.5)2.0(2.5) mm in diameter, glabrous or bristly pubescent; limb hardly exceeding the disc, c. 0.25 mm high; lobes 1.5-2.0 x 1.0 mm, not exceeding length of corolla tube, triangular-linear, obtuse, glabrous or sparsely hairy dorsally, erect and usually appressed to the corolla tube. Corolla in bud ± bulging and apically obtuse with tails short and hardly visible, glabrous or bristly pubescent; tube 1.5-2.0(4.0) mm long, cylindrical with a ring of whitish, ± straight and smooth, deflexed hairs, throat pubescent with spreading-erect, whitish, ± moniliform hairs; lobes pale green or yellowish green, (3)4-5(7) x 2-3 mm, triangular-oblong, apices ± cucullate, shortly apiculate with tails 0.5 mm or shorter, glabrous ventrally, hairy or glabrous dorsally. Stamens epipetalous, inserted at the throat; anthers 1.0-1.5 mm long, oblong or lanceolate, glabrous; filaments c. 0.25 mm long. Disc annular, glabrous. Ovary bi-(tri-)locular, each locule with a solitary pendulous ovule; style shortly exserted, 2.0-2.5(4.0) mm long, glabrous; stylar head complex c. 1.5 x 0.5 mm, cylindrical, deeply two-(three-)lobed. Fruit dorsiventrally flattened and two-lobed if both locules fertile, then up to 25 mm in diameter, lopsidedly globose and one-lobed if only one locule fertile, crowned with persistent calyx lobes, glabrous; brownish when ripe; pyrenes two or one (one aborted).