Trichodiadema pygmaeum

A small, spreading, mat-forming plant, with the branches rooting and spreading along the ground. A central tuberous taproot remains in the centre of the mat, where the original plant first matured.

The leaves are 6–10 mm by 3 mm, and covered entirely in very dense, long hairs. Some of the cells at the leaf-tip are orange in colour. It is therefore without the leaf-tip diadems that are typical for the genus.

The flowers are apricot coloured, each petal with a darker purple central stripe. The stamens form a low central cone surrounded by filamentous staminodes.

It can sometimes be confused with the other two hairy-leafed species of the genus, T.fergusoniae and T.strumosum. However the latter two species do not form mats of branches that root adventitiously, and they both have longer and thinner leaves (usually about 12 mm x 2 mm).^[1]

This threatened species is restricted to shallow rocky soils in quartz outcrops, within shale and silcrete renosterveld vegetation.

It occurs from near Swellendam in the west, to as far east as the lower Breede River and Cape Infanta.^[2][3]