Diosma pedicellata I.Williams

Shrubs about 1 m tall, rigid, much-branched, many-stemmed with a stout rootstock. Branches erect, rigid, glabrous, forked; bark reddish-brown becoming ashy-grey with leaf scars slightly raised, branchlets erect, slender, not very numerous, not hidden by the leaves, sub-dichotomous, soon glabrous. Leaves (including the petiole 1 mm long) 8-2.5 mm long, 0.8-1 mm broad, linear-lanceolate, acute, glabrous, alternate, erect-spreading; apex mucronate with a straight point; margins narrowly hyaline, sparsely serrulate; abaxial surface rounded with gland dots scattered to either side of the midrib; adaxial surface concave. Inflorescence terminal, solitary or pseudo-twin in slender reduced racemes; flowers 7 mm diam., opening in succession, delapsing if infertile. Bract 1-2 mm long, 0.7 mm broad, broadly lanceolate, acute, mucronate, glabrous, sparsely gland-dotted; margins minutely ciliolate. Bracteoles two, 0.8 mm long, 0.7 mm broad, ovate, minutely apiculate, sparsely gland-dotted; margins minutely ciliolate, translucent. Calyx lobes five, 1.3 mm long, 1.5 mm broad, broadly ovate, obtuse, glabrous, sparsely gland-dotted; apex thickened; margins minutely ciliolate, translucent. Petals five, 2.5-3 mm long, 1.8-2.5 mm broad, orbicular, white, glabrous, sessile, spreading, arising high up on the lobe of the disc; margins ciliate-denticulate, irregular. Staminodes none. Filaments five, becoming 1.7 mm long after anthesis, acicular, spreading, glabrous. Anthers five, before anthesis 0.9-1.1 mm long, 0.8 mm broad, yellow, apical gland sessile, inclined inwards. Pollen 51 µ long, 29 µ broad, elliptic, many malformed. Disc 5-lobed, sinuate, green, fleshy, minutely punctate, spreading, exceeding the ovary by a long way. Stigma 0.2-0.4 mm diam., capitellate, green. Style becoming 1.3-1.7 mm long, glabrous, deflexed at first. Ovary 5-carpellate, 0.7 mm diam., glabrous, lobes obtuse. Fruit 5-carpellate, 1.2 mm long overall, 0.8 mm diam., glabrous, pitted with gland dots, becoming ±2.5 mm pedicellate above the calyx when mature; horns ±5 mm long, spreading at 45°. Seed ±7 mm long, 3 mm broad, black, shining; aril for the most part black.