Chaenostoma species near Barrydale

This erect shrub was seen in renosterveld near Barrydale, flowering in October. It resembles the skunkbushes or Chaenostoma, but which one of them it might be remained a mystery. The lower branches are leafless and woody.

The short-stalked, simple leaves are opposite and ovate to elliptic. Their margins are entire and rolled under, a small mucro sometimes present at the obtusely pointed leaf tips. The soft, slightly undulating blades are faintly hairy, the cream midrib and few incurving lateral veins prominent below.

The long-tubed flowers grow on short stalks in dense stem-tip racemes. The calyx is much shorter than the corolla tube. The sepal lobes are shorter than the calyx tube and acutely pointed, their margins hair-fringed.

The hairy corolla is cylindrical, slightly wider near the mouth. The five short, rounded lobes spread around it, somewhat reflexed. The corolla does not have the yellow or orange throat often seen in Chaenostoma flowers.

Some stamens, not all, reach the mouth without being definitely exserted (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).