It is an upright, greyish, dioecious shrublet. It has male and female flowers on separate plants. It grows up to 1.5m (4ft 11in) tall. It has leathery, elliptical shaped and sometimes tufted leaves.[5] They are 15–70mm (1–3in) long, pale green, smooth and have a dull, waxy coating.[6] It blossoms between May and October and bears small waxy,[6] white flowers, either in loose clusters on the male plants or 1 or 2 flowers on the females plants. The flowers have 4 petals.[5]
After flowering, the plant produces an ovoid shaped,[6] seed capsule or 'fruit', which is often dry and brown, and shuttle-shaped.[5] It is 15–20mm (1–1in) long.[6] The husk splits into 2 halves to release the seeds. Small flatten discs with membranous wings.[5]
Taxonomy
It has several Afrikaans common names: such as Bergklapper, Bergklapperbos, Bergklapperbossie, Donkiebos, Klokkiesbos, Peperbos, Peperbossie, Perdebos, Wildenaeltjiebos[2] and T'iena.
It also has a couple of English common names, Wild clove-bush and Pepperbush.[6]
The genus name of Montinia is in honour of Lars Jonasson Montin (1723–1785), a Swedish botanist and doctor in Lund and Halland. He had maintained a large herbarium and was a student of Carl Linnaeus.[7] The Latin specific epithet of caryophyllacea refers to
karyophyllon, the Greek word for Clove.
It was first described and published in Physiogr. Sälsk. Handl. Vol.1 on pages 108–109 in 1776.[3]
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