Ruttya fruticosa

Ruttya fruticosa, commonly the jammy mouth or in Afrikaans the jembekkie (little jammy mouth), is an African exotic, distributed from Tanzania to Somalia and Oman. Of the three Ruttya species, only R. ovata, a scrambling, white-flowering shrub, is indigenous to South Africa.

R. fruticosa is an evergreen, rounded shrub. Fruticose means shrub-like. The plant has stalked, ovate leaves tapering to acutely pointed tips. The margins are entire, the midrib visible.

The inflorescence is a terminal spike with small bracts. The calyx is regular and hairless, the five lobes linear, longer than the tube. The tubular corolla is two-lipped, the lower one three-lobed. Flower colours range from yellow and orange to red. Flowering happens in spring and summer.

In bloom the jammy mouth is much visited by bees, other insects and birds. Children are fond of sucking nectar from the flowers. The plants are palatable to livestock, used as fodder (Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; iNaturalist; Wikipedia).