Roella ciliata flower

The large, bell-shaped flowers of Roella ciliata grow solitary at branch tips. The corolla colouring is blue or mauve on the normally five spreading petal lobes. The flower in the photo surprises with an extra petal. A broad black band covers the midsection of each petal where it bends out, fringed white on the upper edge of the black part. The cup base is creamy yellow, the line of its rim rising shallowly at all the petal margins, as if dancing.

There would normally be five blackish thread-like anthers spreading low in the cup. In this one there are six, giving each petal a stamen. The two-lobed stigma tops the erect style over the centre, the ovary hairless.

Blooming happens from late winter to early autumn (Manning, 2007; Bond and Goldblatt, 1984; iNaturalist; https://pza.sanbi.org).