Smicrostigma viride wider sepals than petals

Reddish stem discoloration on Smicrostigma viride enhances the structural elegance of the stem-tip components, the different shapes and stages of the stubby but smooth, hooked leaves.

The flowers grow solitary and short-pedicelled from stem-tips. Each calyx ends in five, unequal, pointed lobes. The two longer sepals or lobes protrude clearly below the petals in picture. The other three are shorter.

The purple, pink or white petals spread around the flower centres to about 25 cm in diameter. Flowers remain open permanently after first opening, in the fashion of Erepsia flowers, commonly altydvygies (always mesembs, meaning always open mesembs). 

There are petal-coloured or white staminodes erect inside the flower centres around the stamens, concealing the anthers and stigmas. Nectaries are present but inconspicuous. The ovary is flat-topped, its seven to ten stigmas very small.

The generic name, Smicrostigma, is derived from the Greek word smikros meaning small and stigma meaning a point, referring to the small stigmas. 

The fruit is a Lampranthus-type woody capsule usually with as many locules as the flower had stigmas. The capsule’s valves have narrow wings, the expanding keels parallel at the base, diverging and awned at their tips. There are thick covering membranes but no closing bodies.

The seeds are brown to black and rough-surfaced (Frans Noltee Facebook notes 13 March 2019; Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://pza.sanbi.org).