Chironia linoides subsp. linoides

Chironia linoides, the bitterwortel in Afrikaans (bitter root), is a perennial shrublet with narrow, blue-green leaves on the many thin branches. It has pink (or sometimes white) summer flowers with five elliptic to obovate (paddle-shaped) petals over a cylindrical tube, growing solitary, each on its own stem. The anthers are brightly yellow and the white style is bent to one side with a conspicuous knob-like stigma.

The plant grows in the Western Cape and Namaqualand, the winter rainfall area on sandy or marshy open land.

There are different subspecies: subsp. linoides depicted here, also subsp. nana and subsp. emarginata, as well as C. linoides var. subulata. The distinctions among these are not clear. C. linoides is also similar to C. baccifera and Orphium frutescens (Manning, 2009; www.plantzafrica.com).