Heliophila polygaloides Schltr.

Small glabrous, perennial shrublets with pale green annual branches 20-50 cm high from the short woody base. Stems terete, minutely striate, mostly unbranched. Leaves 1-2.5 cm long, 1-2 mm broad, linear or linear-oblanceolate, entire or with 1-2 small teeth, acute. Raceme terminal, the sepals and petals persisting for a long time round the developing ovary. Pedicels 2-4 mm long, erect in flower but soon becoming recurved. Sepals 4.5-5 mm long, 1.5 mm broad, narrowly oblong, weakly 3-nerved; outer 2 cucullate; inner 2 saccate. Petals 7-8 mm long, 3.8-4 mm broad, obovate, rounded, clawed. Filaments 2-2.5 mm and 3-3.3 mm long, subulate. Anthers 1.5-1.7 mm long. Ovary elliptical, sessile, compressed, imperfectly 2-chambered, the septum incomplete and marginal; style short or nearly as long as the ovary; stigma capitate; ovules 2. Fruit 4-5 mm long, 3-4 mm broad, subcircular to ovate-elliptic, pendulous, com pressed, indehiscent, 1-seeded; valves with an indistinct midrib in the lower half and reticulately ridged, the ridges more or less converging on the centre from the thickened rim; style 0.5-1 mm long. Seeds 1.8-2 mm in diameter, subcircular, compressed, immarginate.