''Montinia'' is a

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unispec ...

genus of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

s belonging to the family

Montiniaceae Montiniaceae is a family of flowering plants. It includes two or three genera of shrubs and small trees, native to southwest Africa and tropical East Africa as well as Madagascar. The genera '' Grevea'' and '' Montinia'' are included in most c ...

. It only contains one known species, ''Montinia caryophyllacea'' Thunb. Its native range is

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost subregion of the African continent, south of the Congo and Tanzania. The physical location is the large part of Africa to the south of the extensive Congo River basin. Southern Africa is home to a number of ...

. It is found in Angola, Botswana, the

Cape Provinces The Cape Provinces of South Africa is a biogeographical area used in the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD). It is part of the WGSRPD region 27 Southern Africa. The area has the code "CPP". It includes the Sout ...

(of South Africa) and Namibia. It grows on dry, rocky,

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

slopes.

Description

It is an upright, greyish,

dioecious Dioecy (; ; adj. dioecious , ) is a characteristic of a species, meaning that it has distinct individual organisms (unisexual) that produce male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproductio ...

shrublet. It has male and female flowers on separate plants. It grows up to tall. It has leathery, elliptical shaped and sometimes tufted leaves. They are long, pale green, smooth and have a dull, waxy coating. It blossoms between May to October and bears small waxy, white flowers, either in loose clusters on the male plants or 1 or 2 flowers on the females plants. The flowers have 4 petals. After flowering, the plant produces an ovoid shaped, seed capsule or 'fruit', which is often dry and brown, and shuttle-shaped. It is long. The husk splits into 2 halves to release the seeds. Small flatten discs with membranous wings.

Taxonomy

It has several Afrikaans common names: such as ''Bergklapper'', ''Bergklapperbos'', ''Bergklapperbossie'', ''Donkiebos'', ''Klokkiesbos'', ''Peperbos'', ''Peperbossie'', ''Perdebos'', ''Wildenaeltjiebos'' and ''T'iena''. It also has a couple of English common names, ''Wild clove-bush'' and ''Pepperbush''. The genus name of ''Montinia'' is in honour of Lars Jonasson Montin (1723–1785), a Swedish botanist and doctor in

Lund Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish provinces of Sweden, province of Scania, across the Øresund, Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipali ...

and

Halland Halland () is one of the traditional provinces of Sweden (''landskap''), on the western coast of Götaland, southern Sweden. It borders Västergötland, Småland, Scania and the sea of Kattegat. Until 1645 and the Second Treaty of Brömsebro ...

. He had maintained a large herbarium and was a student of

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

. The Latin

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

of ''caryophyllacea'' refers to karyophyllon, the Greek word for

Clove Cloves are the aromatic flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae, ''Syzygium aromaticum'' (). They are native to the Maluku Islands (or Moluccas) in Indonesia, and are commonly used as a spice, flavoring or fragrance in consumer products, ...

. It was first described and published in Physiogr. Sälsk. Handl. Vol.1 on pages 108–109 in 1776.

References

{{Taxonbar, from1=Q17401828, from2=Q149895 Solanales Monotypic Solanales genera Plants described in 1776 Flora of Angola Flora of Botswana Flora of the Cape Provinces Flora of Namibia