FESTIVUS  C.A. Smith, 1939

Plants glabrous in all parts, covered with a thin, waxy bloom.

Stem stout, short, to 4 cm (taller in culttivated specimens and often with adventitious roots from the nodes at basal part).

Leaves spreading-erect or incurving, opposite, decussate, ovoid-cylindrical, terete or subterete, up to 5 cm long and 2 cm in diameter, and abruptly narrowed in a petiole-like base, narrowed to the top in an often somewhat flattened deltoid, rounded or very obtuse apex, marked with purplish-brown spots or blotches, these sometimes merging into a larger blotch towards the apex.

Inflorescence a simple, lax spike, the flowers in 1-flowered cymules, bracts ovate-deltoid, acuminate, membranaceous.

Flowers : Calyx green, fleshy, cupol-shaped, teeth deltoid, to 2.5 mm long, corolla-tube cylindrical, green or brownish-green, 8 mm long, lobes ovate-acuminate, 2 mm long, the upper part white or tinged pale rose, the lower part reddish.

Type-locality : Near Graaff Reinet, on slopes of rocky hill.

The main differences between A. cooperi and A. festivus lie in the leaf formation and in the inflorescence. In A. festivus the broadest part of the leaves is below the centre whilst they are distinctly petiolate near the base, the corolla is green or brownish-green. In A. cooperi the broadest part of the leaves is above the centre, near the top. At the base they are not, or only very indistinctly petiolate, the corolla being wine-red and the lobes, on the upper face, are beset with small papillae, particularly on the basal part.