Agathosma recurvifolia

Agathosma recurvifolia, commonly known in Afrikaans as kanferboegoe (camphor buchu) and scientifically previously as A. acutifolia, is a spreading, single-stemmed shrub reaching heights from 50 cm to 1 m.

The small flowers grow in stem-tip clusters of up to about ten on hairy pedicels. The cup-shaped calyces each ends in five round-tipped, velvety sepal lobes.

The five, oblong white petals spread in a star-shape to 5 mm in diameter, clawed and hairy at their bases. The petals are about three times as long as the calyx. The anthers are red, similar to those of A. martiana. The filaments are gland-tipped. Flowering happens from late autumn to spring.

The species distribution is in the Western Cape in the eastern Little Karoo on the Rooiberg and Swartberg Mountains and eastwards as far as Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape. The photo was taken at Minwater near Oudtshoorn.

The habitat is dry fynbos and succulent Karoo slopes and scrub valleys. The species is not considered threatened in habitat early in the twenty first century (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; JSTOR; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).