Description: Erect or prostrate, perennial shrubs, glabrous, succulent; branchlets compressed; flowering branches with conspicuous internodes.
Leaves opposite, shortly fused, triangular in cross section, laterally compressed, acutely keeled.
Flowers solitary, terminal, pedicellate. Perianth lobes 5, approximately equal in size, 2 or 3 with membranous margins. Petaloid staminodes many, white, yellow or purple. Stamens numerous. Ovary inferior; 5-locular, with numerous ovules per loculus; placentation parietal; styles 5.
Fruit a hygroscopic capsule; valves winged; expanding keels divergent; placental tubercles absent; seeds many, pyriform, rough, dark brown.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 178 species, southern Africa. Australia: 3 species (naturalized), N.S.W., Vic., Tas., S.A., W.A.
Text by S. W. L. Jacobs & J. Highet
Taxon concept:
| | Key to the species | |
| 1 | Plant prostrate; flowers 1.5–2 cm diam | Lampranthus tegens |
| Plant decumbent to more or less erect; flowers 2–5 cm diam | Lampranthus multiradiatus |
|
