Polygala leptophylla
| Family: | Polygalaceae |
| Full name: | Polygala leptophylla Burch. |
| Location: | Kyffhäuser (2416AD + 2416CB) |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Skaap-ertjie, Skaapertjie |
| English common name(s): | - |
| Synonym(s): | Polygala leptophylla Burch. var. leptophylla Polygala hottentotta var. fleckiana Schinz |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Suffruticose, divaricately much branched, glabrous or downy, with terete, straight, and rigid branches; leaves few and distant, patent, linear, obtuse or mucronulate, tapering at base, petiolate; racemes mostly terminal, erect, rigid, elongating, many-flowered; pedicels very short and flowers pendulous; bracts elliptical, obtuse, tardily deciduous; alæ elliptic-oblong, oblique at base, obtuse, midribbed, ant. sepals obovate; keel crested, lat. petals broadly spathulate; capsule oblong-obcordate; seeds densely albo-setose. A small, rigid, much branched undershrub, 1–2 feet high; the peduncles, after the flowers fall, indurating, but not spinous. Leaves 0.5–0.75 inch long; flowers 2–3 lines long, pale, the alæ whitish, with green veins. (from JSTOR Global Plants website / Flora Capensis) Slender, erect perennial herb with woody base, up to 0.3 m. Stems sparsely branched, blue-green, hairless. Leaves linear, up to 20 x 2 mm, green to blue-green, not fleshy; tip pointed or rounded. Flowers similar to pea flower; wing-like inner sepals cream with dark green veins, 6—8 mm long; upper and lateral petals poorly developed; lower petal fused, cream with tip and fringed appendage bright purple. Flowering summer. This small plant is somewhat broom-like. It is extremely widespread in Namibia, absent only from the south-west and north-east. lt also occurs in Botswana and South Africa. (from Wildflowers of the Central Highlands of Namibia, by Coleen Mannheimer) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien iNaturalist (Namibia / Alex Dreyer) iNaturalist (Namibia) iNaturalist (southern Africa) Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie Tree Atlas of Namibia |
| Photographer: | AA Dreyer |
| Date of photograph: | 21 Dec 2008 |
| Camera make: | Canon |
| Camera model: | PowerShot A700 |
| Lens aperture: | f/4.0 |
| Shutter speed: | 1/1250 s |
| ISO speed: | - |
| Content last updated: | 18 Apr 2024 |
