Diascia parviflora Benth.

Annual herb, main stem 80-400 mm long, 1-3 mm diam., occasionally simple, usually branching low down, weak, decumbent or ascending, glabrous, glandular-puberulous on the inflorescence axis. Leaves in 3-4 pairs on each branch, c. 7-45 x 7-35 mm, ovate, apex acute or subacute, base truncate to subcordate, margins subentire to sharply serrate, glabrous or with a few gland-tipped hairs below on the main veins; petioles up to c. 30 mm long, decreasing rapidly in length upwards, uppermost leaves subsessile, sparsely glandular-pubescent. Flowers many, in terminal racemes, simple or loosely panicled; lowermost bract leaf-like, c. 4 x 2.5 mm, the upper ones smaller, lanceolate, shortly acuminate, lower surface glandular-puberulous; pedicels mostly 5-10 mm long, filiform, glandular-puberulous, usually ascending at an angle of c. 45°, sometimes wide-spreading and then tips abruptly upcurved. Calyx segments lanceolate, acute, anticous pair 2.5-2.75 x 1-1.25 mm, three posticous ones slightly smaller, sparsely glandular-puberulous outside. Corolla tube 1.5-2 mm long, invaginated then partly turned out again; two lateral spurs c. 0.5-1 x 1 mm, slightly curved inwards, with dark sessile glands inside on the outer face; limb c. 6-12 x 6-9 mm, anticous lobe c. 3-7 x 3-6 mm, subrotund, two lateral lobes c. 2-3 x 2.5-4 mm, ovate, two posticous lobes c. 1.5-2 x 1-2 mm, oblong, fused nearly to the apex, corolla “violet” or “reddish-purple”, glabrous outside, inside with two patches of dark sessile glands below the upper lateral sinuses and two small patches laterally placed on the outer face of the palate, which is probably slightly raised; “window” shallowly concave with two lateral elliptic yellow patches. Stamens projecting forward; filaments 2-3 mm long, posticous filaments longer than anticous, sharply curved at tip to bring the anthers into the same plane as the anticous anthers, glabrous or minutely glandular-puberulous, anthers 0.25-0.5 mm long, cohering strongly. Ovary 2 x 1-1.25 mm, deltoid in outline, ovules many in each loculus; style 11.5 mm long, stigma capitate, lying between the anthers. Capsules 5-8 x 2-3 mm, oblanceolate in outline; seeds 0.5 mm long, curved, ridged.