Zygophyllum sessilifolium

Zygophyllum sessilifolium, in Afrikaans commonly known as the witspekbos (white bacon bush), is a slender shrub that sprawls or forms a mat to 75 cm wide.

Its blue-green (glaucous) or grey-green leaves are bifoliolate, the leaflets stalkless and oval in shape with hard, entire margins. In picture, some leaflets have rounded tips, others are acutely pointed. Sessilifolium means stalkless leaves.

The nearly white to pale yellow flowers are cup-shaped, borne on stalks longer than the leaves. The five petal lobes ascend and spread, their surfaces and margins slightly uneven. Dark maroon to purple markings, variably shaped, may be more or less prominent near the petal bases. Flowering happens from late winter to mid-spring.

The fruits are initially globular to oblong with five inconspicuous angles; when they have dried out the fruits are notably five-lobed and ribbed.

The distribution is in the far southwest of the Western Cape from Saldanha to Hottentots Holland and the Peninsula. The habitat is shale and sandy slopes, the plants often growing partly under adjacent shrubs. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2007; Bean and Johns, 2005; iSpot; www.redlist.sanbi.org).