Ochna holstii sepals

Seen from above, the spreading, arched and blunt-tipped sepals of Ochna holstii hang from long pedicels. Already brown here and enlarged as at the end of flowering, the sepals persist, shielding the corollas and other floral parts.

The yellow flowers of O. holstii grow from leaf axils, although in picture the leaves have been lost from the tips of the short side-branches. Flowers are sometimes seen among the new leaves. The bisexual flowers produce their floral parts in fives, the pendulous flowers reaching 2 cm to 3 cm in diameter. Flowering happens in spring.

The fruit develops as five separate, cylindrical carpels from each flower, joined at the base to the receptacle. The fruit measures about 10 mm by 6 mm, changing colour from green to pink or purple, eventually black when ripe (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Schmidt, et al, 2002).