Thunderbolt Flower

triphyllum: leaves with 3 leaflets or lobes

Erect annual herb, 25-200 cm. Leaves opposite, mostly 3-foliolate, upper leaves often simple; leaflets long and narrow, terminal leaflet longest. Extra-floral nectaries normally single. Flowers solitary in the upper leaf axils, mauve with a darker purple centre. Fruit a more or less oblong capsule, c. 40 × 6 mm, erect with an apical beak 6-8mm long, distinctly bent outwards.

Southern Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa.