Nemesia gracilis

Nemesia gracilis is a slender, erect annual growing few branches and reaching heights from 25 cm to 30 cm. The specific name, gracilis, is a Latin word meaning slender or slight. The stems are four-angled in cross-section. The plants may be thinly hairy or nearly hairless.

The simple leaves are opposite, sometimes alternate higher up and well-spaced on the stems. The leaf-shape is ovate to elliptic, the margins toothed.

The small, deep yellow to nearly orange flowers are two-lipped, growing in stem-tip racemes. The upper flowers are closer together than the lower ones. The five calyx lobes are oblong to ovate. The upper lips of the corollas each has four erect, round-tipped lobes that diverge and taper. Short dark lines are present at the bases of these upper lips. At the base of each large lower lip a pair of raised and bearded patches are present, the rounded lobe notched at its tip.

There is a single, purple spur of about 2 mm long with a slightly knob-like tip at the back of each corolla. The flowers are about 7 mm long. Flowering happens from before midwinter until early spring, the plants conspicuous in flowering seasons shortly after fire.

The fruit capsules are broadest at their tips, somewhat triangular in shape.

The species distribution is in the Western Cape from around Clanwilliam to Touwsrivier, Paarl, Gansbaai and eastwards to the Little Karoo. The photo was taken near Oudtshoorn.

The habitat is fynbos and renosterveld on sandy slopes and flats. The species is not considered threatened in habitat early in the twenty first century (Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).