Ifloga glomerata

Ifloga glomerata, commonly in Afrikaans known as a bekvol (mouth full or maw full), the naaldebos (needles bush) or stokmannetjies (little stick men), is a tiny annual that may grow a few erect branches to heights from 3 cm to 10 cm.

The straw-coloured to yellowish flowers are composite, growing sessile in heads from leaf axils, the plant forming part of the Asteraceae family. The inconspicuous flowerheads are only about 3 mm in diameter, the floral bracts often sticky. Flowering happens from late winter to early summer.

The species distribution is in the west and south of the country, the plants growing in the Northern Cape, the Western Cape, the Eastern Cape, the Free State and North West, as well as in Namibia and maybe elsewhere in southern Africa. The photo was taken at the Minwater farm near Oudtshoorn in the Little Karoo.

The habitat is diverse vegetation in sandy soils, often in seasonal watercourses but not in fynbos. Although one common name, bekvol, refers to the plant as a mouthful, it is not browsed. A prevalence indicates overgrazed veld.

Dead plants persist for long, the stokmannetjies seen brown and upright, often in places where the soil has been disturbed. These pioneer plants serve in binding the soil. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Shearing and Van Heerden, 2008; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).