Diascia bicolor K.E.Steiner

Annual herb, glabrous, simple or branching from the base. Leaves many in a basal rosette, simple, lamina ovate or elliptic to obovate, 7-46 mm long, apex rounded to acute, base attenuate, margins entire, repand, sinuate or irregularly cleft, lobes up to 3 mm long, triangular to ovate, entire, apices rounded to acute and often with a minute white callosity; petioles up to ca. 15 mm; stem leaves opposite or alternate, smaller and becoming reduced upwards. Flowers borne on a central branch-like open lax raceme or on lateral racemes arising from the leaf axils, racemes up to 310 mm long, erect or decumbent, peduncles four-sided, up to 1.5 mm on a side, flowers arising in the axils of leaf-like bracts, one to three open flowers per raceme, unscented or with faint spicy fragrance, nodding in early bud, bracts subopposite or alternate, becoming reduced upwards; pedicels 25-75 mm long, ascending, broadened and dorsi-ventrally flattened, especially where attached to the flower, recurving in fruit. Calyx lobes five, the uppermost lobe longest and narrowest, ca. 3.5-3.7 x 1.0-1.2 mm, lanceolate, two adjacent lobes more of less equal, ca. 3.0-3.4 x 1.0-1.3 mm, lanceolate to ovate, all three acute and strongly reflexed, the lower two lobes more or less equal, ca. 3.0-3.6 x 1.2-1.8 mm, spreading, ovate, acute, all lobes scaberulus on inner margins. Corolla bilabiate ca. 13-23 x 14-24 mm; upper lobes ca. 4.8-6.6 x 5.2-6.8 mm, widely ovate, rounded, bases oblique; lateral lobes ca. 4.9-7.1 x 5.8-6.7 mm, oblong to widely ovate, rounded, bases slightly oblique; lower lobe ca. 4.6-7.4 x 5.9-6.9 mm, broadly obcordate; all lobes yellow with a violet to purple base; base covered with sessile or shortly stalked dark purple multicellular glandular trichomes; tube ca. 1.0 mm (front) to 2 mm (back), purplish-red, distended backwards and upwards at base of upper corolla lobes to form two shallow sacs, sacs when viewed from the back of the corolla lobes ca. 1.7-2.8 x 1.5 mm, oblong-ovate in outline, sacs very dark purple with a falciform patch of yellow on the outer side of each opening, containing a dense patch of stalked multicellular trichome elaiophores in the upper flattened portion; tube in centre with a ca. 1.5-2.5 mm boss bearing the stamens, boss ca. 1.5-2.0 x 2.0 mm, extending back to the sinus of the upper lobes separating the two spur entrances, mostly greenish-yellow. Stamens four, projecting forwards, anticous filaments ca. 3.0-3.4 mm long, curved in the lower portion, densely pubescent with long (ca. 1 mm) yellowish trichomes on upper surface; posticous filaments ca. 3.0 mm, nearly straight and covered with shorter (ca. 0.3 mm) yellowish trichomes, all filaments reddish-purple, anthers ca. 1.0 mm long, strongly cohering, yellow. Ovary ca. 2.0 x 1.0-1.1 mm, oblong-ovate in outline, green with an irregular reddish-purple band near the middle, style ca. 2.0-2.4 mm long, tinged reddish-purple, curved upward at 30-40° in the distal half, stigma capitate, surrounded by anthers, ovules ca. 50-115(-130). Capsule ca. 7.0-9.0 x 3.5-4.5 mm, falciform-ovate in outline, more than twice as long as the calyx at maturity, seeds (0.92-) 1.0-1.4 mm long, reticulate, embryo straight.