Diosma echinulata I.Williams

Shrubs about 40 cm tall, dense, rigidly bushy and scabrous to the touch, with several branches arising from a stout root at ground level. Branches short, tough, with a rough grey-brown bark, remaining clothed with leaves for several years. Branchlets erect, short, somewhat clustered, hidden by the leaves, puberulous, 5-angled. Leaves 5-5.8 mm long, including the petiole 0.5 mm long, 2-2.5 mm broad, lanceolate-elliptic, acute, mucronate, sparsely setose on all sides, imbricate, sub-erect, alternate, 5-ranked, margins thick and scabrous, adaxial surface flat, abaxial surface with a prominent midrib, gland-dots indistinct and few in number on midrib and margins. Inflorescence terminal, with flowers and new shoots clustered together; flowers 5 mm diam., star-like, opening in succession. Bract 5 mm long, 1-1.5 mm broad, linear or linear-oblanceolate, acute, scabrid-mucronate, setose on all sides, ciliate, somewhat reddened, margins below narrowly translucent. Bracteoles two, 3.5 mm long, 0.7-0.9 mm broad, similar to the bract. Calyx lobes five, 3.2-3.7 mm long, 1.3-1.4 mm broad, narrowly deltoid, acute, mucronate, reddened above, setose on all sides, ciliate, margins below translucent. Petals five, 2.8 mm long, 1.3 mm broad, oblong, acute, apiculate, sessile and somewhat connate with the lobe of the disc, crisped ciliate, rounded at the base, adaxial surface with a few crisped hairs in the middle, abaxial surface puberulous. Staminodes five, 0.1 mm diam., vestigial, spherical at the apex of the lobe of the disc. Filaments five, becoming 1.3 mm long after anthesis, glabrous, acicular. Anthers five, 0.9 mm long, 0.7 mm broad, yellow, with a minute globose apical gland. Pollen 50 µ long, 25µ broad, elliptic. Disc 5-sinuate-crenulate, stands open, pale green with a dark green rim, exudes nectar, exceeds the ovary by a long way. Stigma 0.3 mm diam., capitellate, green. Style at some stage slightly deflexed, becoming erect 1.4 mm long, terete, glabrous. Ovary 5-carpellate, 0.7 mm diam., carpels with apices setulose. Fruit (from Williams 1589) 5-carpellate, 6 mm long, glabrous, indistinctly gland-dotted, with horns about 2 mm long, fairly erect. Seed (from Williams 1589) 4 mm long, black, shining.