Mesembryanthemum oculatum flowers

The creamy white, or brown-purple flowers of Mesembryanthemum oculatum, sometimes with pale yellow centres, grow solitary and stalked from stem-tips and from leaf axils. There are also salmon pink and beige colour forms of this mesemb. The narrow, oblong petals grow in several whorls or series, the inner ones progressively shorter and thinner, becoming filaments without anthers near the flower centre. This means the inner petals grade into diverging staminodes or sterile stamens around the central cluster of functional, yellow-anthered stamens. This contrasts with the central columns or cones of stamens surrounded by staminodes of many other mesemb flowers.

There are four or five short, pointed stigmas in the flower base. Flowering happens late in winter and early in spring. The dry capsule is soft with five locules (Le Roux, et al, 2005; Smith, et al, 1998; Herre, 1971; iNaturalist).