Diascia humilis

Diascia humilis is an annual, reaching heights to 25 cm and sometimes branches. The stems tend to be square in cross-section.

The stalked, ovate leaves grow in a basal rosette, sometimes with smaller stem leaves present. The leaf margins may be toothed or incised in their lower parts, the leaf-tips rounded and stem leaves more dissected. The soft, fleshy blades have midribs recessed in their lower parts.

The flowers grow solitary and pedicelled from leaf axils, nodding as buds. The small, two-lipped and five-lobed corolla forms a shallow bowl, yellow at its base and in the sacs (rather than spurs), where the trichomes produce oil, not nectar. The four stamens growing in two pairs of unequal length are erect, positioned close to the upper lip of the corolla.

The species distribution is mainly in the Western Cape, slightly into the southwest of the Northern Cape, from southern Namaqualand to the Little Karoo. The photo was taken in the Biedouw Valley.

The habitat is mostly renosterveld or dry fynbos in loamy soils, usually seen in new veld, the early year(s) after fires. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iNaturalist; http://www.worldfloraonline.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).