Hermannia linearifolia Harv.

Bushy suffrutex, 15-60(-100) cm high, usually heavily browsed; stems minutely and densely grey scaly, new growth viscid with minute papillae and occasional stalked glands, otherwise glabrous. Stipules subulate, 0.5-1 mm long, deciduous. Leaves clustered on short, abbreviated shoots, sessile or shortly petiolate; blade varying in length in each cluster, 5 mm to about 12 mm long, very narrowly obovate, plicate, giving the appearance of being li tear, microscopically pitted and with minute viscid papillae, otherwise glabrous; petiole 0 or up to 3 mm long. Inflorescence of 1-flowered cymes in pseudoracemes at the ends of the slender, ultimate branchlets; peduncles aborted or 1-3 mm long, viscid and with a few glands; bracteoles minute, about 0.5 mm long; pedicels usually glabrous, 2-4 mm long. Calyx about 6 mm long, lobed to middle or just beyond; glabrous and somewhat viscid with minute papillae, lobes deltoid-acuminate with the finely and densely ciliate margins incurved in upper portion. Petals about 1 cm long, “deep wine-red”, “red”, “brick-red”, “mauve” or occasionally clear yellow, oblong-obovate in upper two-thirds, produced into a claw with incurved margins in lower third, glabrous. Stamens adhering to stipe at base, free portion about 7 mm long; filaments hyaline, narrowly obovate, overlapped by anther base about as long as anthers. Ovary minutely papillate, about 1.5 mm long, stipitate; stipe about 1.5 mm long; styles 2.5 mm long. Capsule oblong-globose, about 6 mm long, 5 mm broad, with a 4 mm long stipe at base surrounded by the persistent calyx-tube, 5 pairs of spreading horns at apex, horns glabrous, 1-5 mm long.