Malephora crocea (Jacq.) Schwant.

Malephora crocea is grown as an ornamental and often sold as a ground cover for landscaping. It is cultivated along freeways as far north and inland as Fresno, California.

Two varieties of Malephora crocea have been recognized: var. crocea, with the adaxial surfaces of the petals orange and the abaxial surfaces purplish; and var. purpureocrocea (Haworth) H. Jacobsen & Schwantes, with petals purplish on both surfaces, which is grown for ornamental purposes and is not naturalized in the flora.

Subshrubs. Stems light gray- brown, exterior fissured, barklike, to 2 cm diam., corky, becoming woody with age. Leaves crowded at end of short shoots, pale green, sometimes red tinged; blade triangular in cross section, 2.5-6(-12) × 0.6 cm, apex blunt, glaucous. Inflorescences terminal, flowers solitary; pedicel 1-6 cm. Flowers: calyx 0.8-1.5 cm; calyx lobes (4-)5(-6), 3 longer, with translucent margins, 2 shorter, apex acute; petals 40-65, purplish abaxially, orange adaxially, sometimes completely yellow, orange, or red, 4-12 mm; nectary present; stamens 2-5 mm; filaments connate basally, forming dense ring, white-hairy; ovary inferior. Capsules obcuneiform, 8(-12)-loculed; adaxial seed pockets with bifid placental tubercles. Seeds ca. 75, 3-15 per locule, 1 × 0.8 mm. 2n = 36.

introduced; Calif.; Mexico (Baja California); Africa.

Flowering mostly spring-summer.

Margins of coastal wetlands and bluffs; 0-100m.

Mesembryanthemum croceum Jacquin, Fragm. Bot., 17. 1800; Crocanthus croceus (Jacquin) L. Bolus; Hymenocyclus croceus (Jacquin) Schwantes; M. instititum Willdenow