Heliophila gariepina Schltr.

Erect annual herbs 30-70 cm high, glaucous and glabrous except for the coarsely hairy pedicels and minutely puberulous ovaries and fruits. Leaves 3-6.5 cm long. 2-9 mm broad, oblong-lanceolate to lanceolate (the lower ones sometimes linear), cordate at the base, sessile, acute or acuminate, the lower leaves opposite, the upper alternate. Racemes terminal, many-flowered, dense in flower, very lax in fruit. Pedicels hairy, especially in the lower half; in flower 2-3 mm long, erect; in fruit 3-4 mm long, spreading or sharply reflexed. Sepals 2-2.8 mm long, 0.8-1.1 mm broad, oblong, semi-persistent; the outer 2 cucullate and thickened at the tip, membranous-margined; the inner 2 slightly saccate, broadly membranous-margined. Petals 3-3.8 mm long, 1.5-2 mm broad, obovate or ± oblong above the short claw, rounded, each with a very small appendage. Filaments 1.9-2.3 mm and 2.2-2.8 mm long, subulate, the short ones ± widened at the base. Anthers 0.4-0.6 mm long. Ovary linear; stigma large, capitate, subsessile; ovules 6-10. Fruits 2-2.5 cm long, 1.3-1.5 mm broad, linear, moniliform, the 'beads' oval; valves 1-nerved, glabrous or puberulous; style 2-3 mm long, swollen or thick, cylindrical. Seeds 1.5-1.6 x 1-1.2 mm, oblong, very narrowly margined, when fully ripe the margin hardly visible.