Pachycarpus natalensis flowers

The inflorescence of Pachycarpus natalensis is a small cluster of cream and pink-purple flowers borne from leaf axils near stem tips. The inflorescence is mostly stalkless, the flowers on purple, finely hairy pedicels. The small, five-lobed calyx, inconspicuous at the back, has narrow, slightly hairy, blunt-tipped lobes.

The five nearly rounded corolla lobes spread, attenuating to their pointed, slightly curling tips. These lobes are shallowly concave on their upper, pale cream surfaces, more or less pink to purple-blotched in the lower parts. Some plants have relatively unmarked corollas with dark coronas contrasting. The corolla lobes are free to near the base where they may be paler and unmarked.

The five purple and sometimes partly cream corona lobes emerge raised above the corolla from the pale, greenish cream, stalked staminal column. The corona lobes cohere, their tips neatly together in the centre, forming a slightly flattened, globose chamber over the style head.

Slit openings between the corona lobes give pollinators access for reaching the inner sanctum where food and pollen transactions happen unseen and unspoken among style head, anthers, pollinia and guests.

The blooming season is often short, only midsummer, sometimes from midspring through summer.

The ellipsoid fruit follicles that follow are smooth, semi-inflated and six-winged (Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; http://pza.sanbi.org).