Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Cav., Icon. 4:60, t. 399 (1798).

Description:
Perennial herb at first stemless, then with a few short procumbent branches to 15 cm long from the basal rosette, densely covered with short hairs; leaves with petioles 0.5-3 cm long; lamina oblanceolate, 5-20 x 0.6-6 cm, pinnately compound to lyrate-pinnatisect and in parts double-pinnatisect, with opposite lobes often unequal and with the large terminal part entire or toothed.

Inflorescence with sessile flowers borne singly in the axils of the leaf-like bracts; floral tube 10-11 cm long, cylindrical but gradually broadened below the calyx; sepals linear-lanceolate, 25-30 mm long, incompletely separating and bent to one side, covered with short hairs outside; petals broadly obovate, to 35 mm long, rounded to mucronate or emarginate, white fading to pink; stamens with filaments scarcely broadened towards the base; anthers dorsifixed and T-shaped, 12-13 mm long; ovary inferior, barrel-shaped, with 4 ridges; stigma with 4 slender lobes.

capsule c. 2 cm long, with hard wings at their broadest at about two-thirds of the length, covered with fine spreading hairs.

Published illustration: Lindley (1824) Edwards' Bot. Reg. 9:t. 763.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NL, SL, SE.   Native to Chile. Conservation status: naturalised Flowering time: Oct — Nov.; with flowers opening in the evening.

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

Biology: No text

Taxonomic notes: No recent records of this species are available. The exceptionally large flowers might be the reason why it has been referred to as O. grandiflora but that is a yellow-flowered species with cylindrical capsules.

Author: Not yet available