Drosanthemum crassum

Drosanthemum crassum is a robust to spindly shrublet, a much-branched vygie that reaches heights around 50 cm. The waxy, yellow-brown stems become twisted as they age, the bark peeling.

The cylindrical, oblong to barrel-shaped leaves are succulent, pale green or grey green to bright green. Shiny bladder cells are present on the surfaces. Leaf dimensions are 5 mm to 8 mm long and up to 3 mm thick. The specific name, crassum, is a Latin word meaning thick, referring to the leaf-shape.

The flowers grow solitary, coloured white, pink or purple. The narrowly oblanceolate petals are up to 1 cm long with rounded to pointed tips. Flowering happens from late winter to early summer. The fruits have five locules.

The species distribution is in the Western Cape, from the Tanqua Karoo to the Little Karoo.

The habitat is succulent Karoo in loamy and sandy soil, terrain where plants cope with easy as well as hard seasons. The species is considered near threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century, due to agricultural activity involving vineyards, orchards and overgrazing. The plants are palatable to game and stock (Vlok and Schutte-Vlok, 2015; iNaturalist; http://worldfloraonline.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).