Diosma passerinoides Steud.

Shrubs with several stems arising from a fairly stout rootstock, 300-400 mm tall, forming a dense bush with interlocking branches which may be associated with a tuft of grass. Branches short, variously bent, glabrous, leafless; bark dirty brown, fairly rough. Branchlets short, very numerous, fairly erect, slender, puberulous, well clothed but not hidden by the leaves. Leaves 2-3 mm long, 1-1.5 mm broad, elliptic, obtuse, sparsely scabrid-pubescent, sessile, erect, appressed at the base, spreading above, alternate, spirally 5-ranked; apex with a blunt callus; hyaline margins very narrow with very short spiky hairs; adaxial surface glabrous, flat when fresh; abaxial surface gland-dotted on both sides of the prominent midrib and on the margin. Inflorescence terminal, solitary, white. Bract leaf-like, 1.5 mm long, 0.8 mm broad, obtuse, minutely pubescent; margins narrow, ciliate below; apex callused. Bracteoles two, 1 mm long, 0.8 mm broad, sub-ovate, obtuse, callused, minutely and sparsely pubescent; apex thickened; margins minutely ciliolate. Calyx lobes five, 1.7 mm long, 1.4 mm broad, somewhat deltoid, thickened with a blunt apical callus, spreading and somewhat recurved above, adaxially very short-pubescent, abaxially glabrous. Petals five, 3 mm long, 2.2 mm broad, ovate or sub-orbicular, obtuse, glabrous, white. Staminodes five, vestigial, a round swelling on the disc about 0.15 mm diam., or a translucent sessile sphere. Filaments five, becoming 1.8 mm long, acicular, glabrous. Anthers five, before anthesis 1.3 mm long, 0.8 mm broad, wine-coloured with a semi-immersed gland at the apex, adaxially somewhat yellow. Pollen 47 µ long, 23 µ broad, oblong. Disc 5-sinuate, 5-crenulate, green fleshy, well developed, standing wide open. Stigma 0.3 mm diam., green, capitellate. Style at first deflexed, becoming 1 mm long, glabrous. Ovary 5-carpellate, 1 mm diam., glabrous, becoming reddened, apices globose. Fruit 5-carpellate, 6 mm long, 5 mm diam., glabrous, pitted with gland dots to a varying degree; horns 1.5 mm long, spreading. Seed 4.5 mm long, 1.8 mm broad, black, shining; aril streaked with black.