Villarsia capensis flower and buds

The five-petalled yellow flowers of Villarsia capensis are borne in branched, cyme-shaped panicles. The calyx of the flower is about 6 mm long, divided to its base. The purple-tipped sepals are well shown on the buds in the photo.

The petal margins on these flowers are conspicuous, reminding of Holothrix flowers. The winged fringes, frazzled in unkempt fashion from long, thin, thread-like sections spread along the petal lobes above the wide corolla cup. This cup or open tube is shorter than the corolla lobes.

The ovate central petal parts are clearly delineated inside the fringes by marked indentation lines outside of which the fringes have irregular patches of delicately thin surfaces among the threads, all yellow.

The stamens are short, the anthers nearly sessile and positioned well inside the cup, while the long style is tipped with a roughly circular stigma indented in its centre. The stigma is borne at the level of the petal lobes. The ovary is broad-based, one-celled. Flowering happens from midspring through summer (Bean and Johns, 2005; iSpot; JSTOR).