Hermannia minimifolia
| Family: | Sterculiaceae |
| Full name: | Hermannia minimifolia Friedr.-Holzh. |
| Location: | Sossusvlei area (2415CB) |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Lusernbos |
| English common name(s): | - |
| Synonym(s): | - |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Red flowers. Hermannia minimifolia takes the form of dense thickets up to 80 cm high. Stems, leaves and calyces are covered with a greenish fuzz. The leaves are small and exclusive. The flowers are solitary in the armpit of leaves, five calyx lobes are stretched forming a star, the five petals are very short red and purple anthers 5 are grouped into a cone shape protruding. This plant is found in the dunes of the Namib Desert. (from www.planetefleurs.fr, translated from French by Google Translate) Suffrutex, erect, up to 60 cm tall, ultimate branchlets short, slender, rigid, and divaricate, stellatetomentose. Stipules about 1 mm long, stout, tomentose. Leaves not, or very shortly, petiolate; blade densely stellate-tomentose, on average about 2.5 mm long and 1 mm broad, usually shorter than 5 mm, broadly elliptic or obovate-cuneate, recurved, apex acute or truncate and 2-3-lobed, margins entire or very sparsely toothed in upper half; petiole very short or absent. Inflorescence axillary, 1-flowered; peduncle about 2 mm long, stellate-tomentose; pedicel about 3 mm long, roughly stellate-tomentose; bracts caducous. Calyx roughly stellate-tomentose without, lobed almost to base, tube about 2 mm long, lobes about 5 mm long, long-acuminate appressed hairy in upper portion within. Petals “dark brownish purple” , about 4.5 mm long; limb oblong, margins somewhat incurved, lobed at the base; claw with involute margins, ridge on inner face o f petal between lobes minutely setose. Stamens with broadly obovate, hyaline filaments, hairy on shoulders, about 2.5 mm long, 2 mm broad; anthers about 6 mm long, ciliate. Capsule about 5 mm long, subglobose, roughly stellate-tomentose, not horned; styles about 6 mm long, minutely hairy. Seeds 1-2 in a cell, reniform, about 2 mm wide. Recorded from the dunes south of Kuiseb, South West Africa. (from Revision of Hermannia subgenus Hermannia in southern Africa, Verdoorn, 1980) |
| 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: | 02 Mar 2009 |
| Camera make: | Canon |
| Camera model: | PowerShot A700 |
| Lens aperture: | f/4.0 |
| Shutter speed: | 1/800 s |
| ISO speed: | - |
| Content last updated: | 18 Apr 2024 |
