Gnidia oppositifolia flowers

The pale-yellow flowers of Gnidia oppositifolia grow in clusters of four to six at stem-tips. (Plants bearing white flowers are rare.)

The cylindrical calyx tube, the dominant floral part is about 15 mm long, silky hairs on its outside and in picture thicker in the upper half. It ends in four yellow, nearly oblong and thickish, spreading sepals.

The sepals are bigger and yellower than the four smaller petals or fleshy petal scales immediately above them. These scales also spread around the small mouth. In picture they are already drying to brown, the flowers being old.

G. oppositifolia flowers are night-fragrant, suggesting they’re attractive to nocturnal insects like moths.

Flowering happens all year round (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Manning, 2007; Bean and Johns, 2005; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist).