Mesembryanthemum tenuiflorum leaves and flowers

The erect, cylindrical leaves of Mesembryanthemum tenuiflorum are either paired or single, with tips rounded and sometimes club-shaped. The green leaf surfaces are slightly warty or when moisture is sufficient, showing bladder cells on the surfaces. The leaves are summer deciduous.

The solitary flowers grow stalked, their stems corky at the base. A flower has five fleshy sepals. The sepals in picture are purple. The flowers are pale to greenish yellow, sometimes greyish pink. In picture the older flowers soon lose colour in the upper petal parts. Flower diameter is about 3 cm, sometimes more.

The staminodes or sterile stamens form a conspicuous, loose tuft arching over the flower centre, covering the real stamens. The unusually strong staminodial development, petaloid staminodes in the case of this species, form the showy part of the bloom. The stamens are few and centrally recessed or sunken, dependent upon the physical skills of small pollinator insects entering the flower interior. The five nectar glands in the flower base are grooved. That's where the crawling ones are headed.

Bloomtime is from before midwinter to the end of winter. It is not known whether the flowers of this species close at night.

The fruit capsules each has five valves with valve wings present. The comparatively large seeds are D-shaped (Leistner, (Ed.), 2000; Smith, et al, 1998; Manning and Goldblatt, 1997; iNaturalist; https://www.llifle.com).