Xysmalobium asperum

Xysmalobium asperum, commonly the sandpaper cartwheel, is a small, erect or reclining perennial that grows a single stem from a tuberous rootstock to heights from 15 cm to 30 cm.

The opposite, simple leaves are lance-shaped with short petioles and entire margins. The dark green and hairy blades curve backwards. The leaf midribs are pale cream and conspicuous with several parallel, spreading lateral veins to the margins. The leaves are up to 8 cm long and 3 cm wide.

The inflorescences are umbels from leaf axils and stem tips, each about 2 cm in diameter. In picture the dark red buds are rounded and flat-topped, the open flower corolla lobes yellow inside and mostly reflexed far back, around the pedicels. Some of the corolla lobes in picture are dark red, maybe ageing to that. Five bulging, yellow green corona lobes encircle each white staminal column top, the flower centre, where the stamens and styles are close together. Flowering happens from spring to after midsummer.

The fruit is a follicle of about 7 cm long and 2 cm wide, covered in longitudinal rows of small, soft spines.

The species distribution is in KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Gauteng and North West. The habitat is rocky grassland. The habitat population is deemed of least concern early in the twenty first century (Germishuizen and Clarke, 2003; Pooley, 1998; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).