Citation: Vahl, Symb. Bot. 3:86 (1794).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Tufted honey flower; kruidje-roer-my-nie.

Description:
Small partly downy shrub often 2-3 m high; leaves 10-12 cm long; leaflets 9-11, oblong-lanceolate, deeply serrate, green with minute stellate hairs above, grey-tomentose beneath, 4-5 cm long, 10-15 mm broad; stipules subulate, free, 10-25 mm long.

Flowers in spreading racemes usually less than 9 cm long; bracts ovate, acuminate, longer than the pedicels; pedicels c. 5 mm long; calyx greenish and pink, conspicuously pouched at the base; the 2 upper segments broad-ovate, with a dark-red spot at the base inside, 10-20 mm long; the other 3 segments lanceolate, shorter; petals with red oblanceolate laminas and hairy linear claws which are connected at the summit by a woolly growth, 12-15 mm long.

Capsule stellate-downy, net-veined, 25-30 mm long; valves rounded at the top and compressed so as to make the capsule appear 4-winged; seeds black, shining, 1 or 2 in each cell.

	Melianthus comosus.
Image source: fig 424 in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Morley & Toelken (1983) Flowering plants in Australia, fig. 118.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: YP, SL, SE.   Vic.   Native to South Africa. Conservation status: naturalised Flowering time: Aug. — Nov.

SA Distribution Map based on current data relating to specimens held in the State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available