Hermannia joubertiana Harv.

Suffrutex, 30-90 cm tall, spreading or bushy, branchlets pubescent with fringed scales or stellate-pubescent, stellate hairs mostly tubercle-based, glabrescent but small tubercles persistent. Stipules narrowly oblong to ovate-oblong, 2-5 mm long, 1.5-2 mm broad at base. Leaves sessile, up to about 12 mm long, narrowly cuneate or spathulate, entire except sometimes at apex, broadest near apex, about 2.5 mm broad, usually plicate, apex obtuse, mucronate, rarely lobed or toothed, abaxial surface usually pustulate and with minute stellate hairs usually crowning the pustules, glabrous on inner face, midrib broad (translucent ?). Inflorescence of 2-to 3-flowered cymes, cymes clustered at apices of branchlets and sometimes in axils of upper leaves; peduncles short, up to about 2 mm long, bracts linear, 2 mm long; pedicels 2-5 mm long, erect and cernuous only at apex, stellate-pubescent, sometimes densely so and with gland-tipped hairs interspersed. Calyx about 4 mm long, lobed to or almost to middle, tube at first narrowed at mouth but eventually wide and shallow, lobes acute from a deltoid base, sinuses wide, coarsely stellate-pubescent outside, sometimes gland-tipped hairs present as well, rarely glabrescent. Petals red, partly yellow within, “dark red”, “bright red”, or “dark purple”, twisted, about 8 mm long, blade oblong, abruptly narrowed below middle into a claw with infolded margins, edges of claw thinly tomentose. Stamens about 4 mm long, anthers somewhat shorter than hyaline, more or less oblong filaments; filaments shortly overlapped by anther bases. Ovary about 2 mm long, shallowly 5-lobed and 5-umbonate at apex, stellate-hairy; stipe under 1 mm long; styles cohering, about 3 mm long; stigma capitate, usually conspicuous. Capsule about 4.5 mm long, stellate-hairy, bluntly 5-angled, 5-umbonate at apex; stipe 1 mm long, umbos 1 mm long.