Shrubby Prismcarp

Prismatocarpus fruticosus belongs to a genus of small, wiry shrubs found only in the fynbos of South Africa's Cape Floristic Region, one of the richest and most tightly packed plant kingdoms on earth. Unlike many of its Cape neighbors, such as buchu or rooibos, this particular species has no documented history of use by the Khoi, San, or later settler herbal traditions that we could find. It seems to have lived quietly on its sandstone slopes, known mainly to botanists and to the bees and long-tongued flies that visit its small bell-shaped flowers. That absence of a use record is worth honoring rather than papering over, since so much of the fynbos has yet to be studied at all.