Brunia esterhuyseniae (Strid) Class.-bockh. & E.G.H.Oliv.

Shrub vigorous, much branched, 50-100 cm high, rather dense and wide. Branchlets villous, suberect to ascending, closely leafy towards the tip, lower down defoliated, glabrate, and marked with leaf scars; cortex greyish brown. Leaves ascending to appressed, imbricate, 4-7 mm long, 2-3 mm broad, elliptic, acute, with a short black mucro, concave and glabrous beneath, convex and villous above, becoming glabrate when old or retaining hairs at the margins. Flowers in the axils of very slightly reduced leaves, sessile, with two bracteoles, in 4-7-flowered terminal heads. Bracteoles 2.5-3.5 mm long, 1-1.5 mm broad, lanceolate, acuminate, with a black mucro, navicular, membranous, villous on the upper half of the dorsal face, ciliate. Calyx submembranous, red; calyx-tube obconic, 5-6 mm long, glabrous; calyx-lobes 5.2-2.5 mm long, lanceolate, acuminate, with black mucros, villous on the back, ciliate. Corolla glabrous, red; corolla-tube 7-10 mm long, narrow, obconic, free from the ovary, with an external fringe of hyaline hairs at the base; corolla-segments 5, 4.5-6 mm long, 3-4 mm broad, obovate. Anthers 5, subsessile, glabrous, inserted in the mouth of the corolla-tube, ca. 2 mm long, lanceolate, sagittate at the base, dehiscent before the flower opens. Ovary superior, oblong, 1.5-2 mm long, 0.5-0.7 mm broad, glabrous, with indistinct ribs, imperfectly bilocular, 10-16-ovulate; styles 2, free, slender, 2-2.5 mm long; stigmas minute.