Roella muscosa L.F.

Low-growing, in flat patches 1 m. or more across, sometimes dense and almost cushion-like. Stems mostly in the ground, woody at the base only, the upper parts slender, much branched, herbaceous, glabrous. Leaves crowded towards the tips of the stems, ovate, 4-6 mm. long, spreading, often falcate, acute, flat, glabrous, the edges with 2-3 serrate indentations ending in a very short seta. Leaves gradually narrowed to a very short petiole sheathing the stem. Flowers solitary, terminal, with 1 or 2 leaves at their base. Calyx lobes lanceolate, acute, 2-3 mm. long, edged with scattered long cilia. Corolla 1-1-5 cm. long, violet-bkie with the base of the tube white, campanulate, the spreading or reflexed lobes shorter than the tube. Filaments very shortly flattened at the base. Style about as long as the corolla tube, hairy in the upper part. Disc glabrous, flat at first but becoming hemispherical. Ovary glabrous. Fruit about 4 mm. long, opening by a small pore at the apex of the enlarged disc. Calyx lobes enlarged in fruit and reddish.