Manulea platystigma
Author: Ivan Lätti
Photographer: Judd Kirkel Welwitch
Manulea platystigma grows a basal tuft of obovate, deeply toothed leaves on thick whitish petioles. Several flower stalks may be produced on one plant in a summer season.
The plants photographed here were found flowering in January in the Mkhomazi Wilderness Area close to the Lesotho border. The distribution of the species is small, lying in the KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape Drakensberg as well as in Lesotho in open, summer rainfall grassland.
It may be that M. platystigma, M. crassifolia, M. dregei and M. bellidifolia are all the same plant. South Africa has 73 species of Manulea (iSpot; JSTOR).