Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 639 (1753).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Cape honey flower.

Description:
Almost glabrous shrub often c. 3 m high; leaves to 35 cm long; leaflets 9-13, lanceolate, deeply serrate, green and glabrous on both surfaces, paler below, 8-12 cm long, 3-5 cm broad; stipules united into 1 long lanceolate structure up to 10 cm or more long.

Flowers in dense nodding racemes 30-40 cm long; bracts ovate, about as long as the pedicels; pedicels 15-25 mm long; calyx reddish, shortly spurred, sparsely hairy; sepals ovate, the longest two 20-25 mm long, the other 3 shorter; petals reddish-brown, with oblanceolate laminas, connivent and woolly above, much shorter than the sepals.

Capsule glabrous, net-veined, 30-40 mm long, with 4 acute lobes at the apex and compressed so as to make the capsule deeply 4-lobed longitudinally; seeds black, shining, 2 in each cell.

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

Published illustration: Marloth (1925) Flora of South Africa 2, 2:pl. 54, fig. Ill.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NL, YP, SL, SE.   N.S.W..   Native to South Africa. Conservation status: naturalised Flowering time: Sept. — Jan.

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