Heliophila rigidiuscula

Heliophila rigidiuscula, commonly the grassland blue cress and in Afrikaans bloubekkie (little blue maw), is a perennial growing annual stems to about 90 cm in height from a woody base.

The leaves are narrow, scattered along the stems and up to 7 cm long. Those higher up are thin like filaments.

Racemes of sometimes drooping flowers on long pedicels are borne from midspring to early autumn. The four rounded, spreading and overlapping petals are pale mauve or violet overlap. The petal bases are about white, their surfaces covered in straight veins radiating from the base to the irregularly shaped upper margins. The fruits are beaked pods on long stalks, each bearing four to eight seeds.

This species distribution is widespread in the east of South Africa from the Eastern Cape, the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal to the provinces north of the Vaal River, as well as Lesotho and Swaziland. This flower was found in the Mkhomazi Wilderness Area in KwaZulu-Natal in January.

The habitat is grassy slopes and flats. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2009; iNaturalist; iSpot; JSTOR; http://redlist.sanbi.org).