Diascia whiteheadii

Diascia whiteheadii, commonly known in Afrikaans as gemsbokhorinkies (little gemsbok horns) and sometimes as the Bokkeveld twinspur, is a soft annual reaching heights up to 20 cm. The plant in picture shows a whorl or two of leaves at nodes where branching occurs, none at ground level.

The species distribution is in the northwest of the Western Cape and the southwest of the Northern Cape, mainly the Bokkeveld Mountains and the Cederberg. The photo was taken in the Biedouw Valley.

The habitat is rocky, sandstone slopes where the plants grow in arid fynbos and renosterveld. How the species is faring in nature in our time early in the twenty first century is unknown as SANBI has not listed it at the time of writing (Manning, 2007; Manning and Goldblatt, 1997; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).