Hermannia hyssopifolia

Hermannia hyssopifolia, commonly sometimes called the fat dollsrose and in Afrikaans the pokkiesblom (pox flower), is a shrub of 1,5 m to 2 m in height. The singe-stemmed plant reseeds, doesn’t resprout after veld fires.

The leaves are wedge-shaped, opposite, hairy and the mature ones are faintly toothed in their upper halves. Leaf length is up to 2 cm.

The flower is pale yellow, fading to reddish, but the corollas are less noticed than the large, urn-shaped and pale yellow calyces behind them. A calyx shows fold-lines running to the pin-hole opening at the flower top. Flowers are usually seen from late winter to after midspring.

The species distribution is in the Western Cape from the Cape Peninsula northwards to around Ceres, and eastwards coastally, also through the Little Karoo to the western parts of the Eastern Cape, as far as Gqeberha. This plant was seen in September near Greyton. 

The habitat is seasonally moist stony slopes near water courses and drainage lines. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Curtis-Scott, et al, 2020; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2009; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).