Compilation
Hydnora solmsiana

A subterranean root parasite.The plant-body rhizome-like, verrucose, up to c. 10 cm wide, ± irregular in shape and somewhat flattened, simple or with widely spreading horizontal branches, firmly-fleshy, brick-red inside, containing mucilage ducts, with sticky exudate when fresh, rich in tannins.Branches ± terete and densely covered with small conical warts.Flowers emerging directly from the “rhizome” and branches, remaining partially below ground, solitary or several remotely scattered.Perianth fleshy-coriaceous, 5–25 cm long, tube 3–4 cm in diameter, brown and roughly corky outside, pinkish inside.Perianth lobes usually 4, appearing above ground, fully patent in wet weather and lying on the soil surface, otherwise connivent or even connate at the tip, 6–8 cm long, lanceolate, thickly fleshy, broadly channelled and glandular on the inside; the lobe tips (cucullus) ± thickened, triangular in cross-section or grooved outside, the adjacent cucullus faces glabrous and cushion-like; the margins below the lobe-tips broad and beset with subulate setae.Anthers continuously joined at their bases in a series of large inverted “V”s forming a wavy ring, the anther structure transversally striate and divided into very numerous horizontal pollen sacs; pollen sticky, adhering to the anthers.Ovary unilocular, with numerous infolded, pendant placentas.Stigma sessile, cushion-shaped, 3–4(5)-lobed; each lobe finely ribbed and covered with a brown liquid in living material.Fruit entirely subterranean, fleshy, 10–15 cm in diameter, globose, many-seeded, often splitting irregularly at maturity.Outer layer of fruit a scaly periderm; inner pericarp mealy, white, very sweet to taste.Seeds brown, 1–1.77 mm, oblong to globose.Seedlings unknown.