''Guthriea capensis'' is an acaulescent perennial herb endemic to South Africa and occurring in cool and damp sites facing south or east in the mountains of the

Cape Province The Province of the Cape of Good Hope ( af, Provinsie Kaap die Goeie Hoop), commonly referred to as the Cape Province ( af, Kaapprovinsie) and colloquially as The Cape ( af, Die Kaap), was a province in the Union of South Africa and subsequen ...

Lesotho Lesotho ( ), officially the Kingdom of Lesotho, is a country landlocked as an enclave in South Africa. It is situated in the Maloti Mountains and contains the highest mountains in Southern Africa. It has an area of over and has a populatio ...

and

KwaZulu-Natal KwaZulu-Natal (, also referred to as KZN and known as "the garden province") is a province of South Africa that was created in 1994 when the Zulu bantustan of KwaZulu ("Place of the Zulu" in Zulu) and Natal Province were merged. It is loca ...

. ''Guthriea'' is

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

and was named after the botanist and mathematician

Francis Guthrie Francis Guthrie (born 22 January 1831 in London; d. 19 October 1899 in Claremont, Cape Town) was a South African mathematician and botanist who first posed the Four Colour Problem in 1852. He studied mathematics under Augustus De Morgan, and ...

by his friend the botanist

Harry Bolus Harry Bolus (28 April 1834 – 25 May 1911) was a South African botanist, botanical artist, businessman and philanthropist. He advanced botany in South Africa by establishing bursaries, founding the Bolus Herbarium and bequeathing his library an ...

. This ground-hugging species with a rhizome and fleshy roots forms a compact rosette of some 20-30 broadly elliptic or cordate discolorous leaves with crenate margins, measuring about 50 x 75 mm, glossy above with deeply indented venation hiding creamy-green flowers which are close to the ground, solitary and stalked. Its primary pollinator is a reptile, the Drakensberg crag lizard (''

Pseudocordylus ''Pseudocordylus'' is a genus of small to large girdled lizards from South Africa, commonly known as crag lizards. Six species of ''Pseudocordylus'' are known; they are distinguished from girdled lizards of the genus ''Cordylus'' by the presen ...

subviridis''), a rare association, the only other plant whose primary pollinator is also reptilian (''

Phelsuma ''Phelsuma'' is a large genus of geckos in the family Gekkonidae. Species in the genus ''Phelsuma'' are commonly referred to as day geckos. Some day geckos are seriously endangered and some are common, but all ''Phelsuma'' species are CITES Appe ...

'' geckos) is ''

Trochetia ''Trochetia'' is a genus of flowering plants from the family Malvaceae (formerly in the Sterculiaceae, but this family is now usually subsumed in the Malvaceae). They are endemic to the Mascarene Islands. The genus was first described by A.P. de ...

blackburniana'' from Mauritius. The lizards are attracted by the scent of a nectar component

safranal Safranal is an organic compound isolated from saffron, the spice consisting of the stigmas of crocus flowers (''Crocus sativus''). It is the constituent primarily responsible for the aroma of saffron. It is believed that safranal is a degradat ...

, a cyclic terpenic aldehyde. ''Guthriea'' belongs to the family Achariaceae, a family which now includes various species previously placed in the obsolete family

Flacourtiaceae The Flacourtiaceae is a defunct family of flowering plants whose former members have been scattered to various families, mostly to the Achariaceae and Salicaceae. It was so vaguely defined that hardly anything seemed out of place there and it bec ...

; other related species include: '' Kiggelaria africana'', '' Rawsonia lucida'' and '' Xylotheca kraussiana''.

Description

"''Acaulescent perennial herbs with a subhorizontal rhizome and fleshy roots. Leaves rosulate, simple, ovate or cordate, petiolate, discolorous, crenate. Flowers solitary, pedicelled. Male flowers: sepals 5, linear, almost as long as corolla and adnate to it for almost its whole length; corolla 5-lobed, profusely veined, tube deeply campanulate, lobes shorter than tube, reflexed; glands 5, fleshy, situated at base of corolla tube; stamens 5, filaments arising in throat of corolla, shorter than anthers, flattened, anthers didymous with broad connective, pectinate. Female flowers: sepals 4 or 5, linear, adnate to corolla for half their length; corolla 4- or 5-lobed, tube campanulate, lobes much shorter than tube, transversely oblong, erect; glands 4 or 5, fleshy, situated at base of corolla tube; ovary sessile, with 10-15 ovules on 4 or 5 parietal placentas; style broadly linear, 4- or 5-lobed. Fruit a 4- or 5-valved capsule, enclosed in persistent corolla. Seeds several, ellipsoid, arillate.''"

References

External links

Distribution mapClose-up of flowersUnderside of leaf and flowers
{{Taxonbar, from=Q10293181 Achariaceae Herbs Monotypic Malpighiales genera