Kagga Kamma Private Nature Reserve

Gk. amphi = around; glossa = tongue; referring to the long tongue-like leaves.

Name from the Greek a, negative, and thanatos, death, in allusion to the persistent dry involucral bracts.

namaquensis from the Namaqualand region of the Northern Cape, South Africa, originally inhabited by the Nama peoples, a Khoisan tribe that were traditionally hunter-gatherers.

Gk. eurys = large or broad; ops = eye or face; referring to the large showy capitula or flower head.

Gk. leukos = white; dendron = tree; referring to commonly called ‘witteboom’ or ‘silver tree’.

For Francis Masson (1741–1805), British gardener and plant collector for Kew Gardens. He was sent by Sir Joseph Banks to collect plants in South Africa and sailed with Captain James Cook to the Cape, where he stayed from 1772–1775. Two of his three expeditions were made jointly with Carl Peter Thunberg, who named this genus for him. From 1786–1795, he visited Madeira, the Canary Islands and Azores, West Indies, North America and North Africa. He collected more than 500 specimens including, now household names, the bird-of-paradise flower Strelitzia reginae and the arum lily Zantedeschia aethiopica among others such as Gladioli, Lobelia, Geranium, Pelargonium, Protea and Mesembryanthemum. He authored Stapeliae Novae on new South African succulents he discovered (1796).

From the Greek oxys = sharp, sour or acid and (h)als = salt. The plant is frequently consumed for its sour taste caused by the oxalic acid, particularly the flowering stalks of O. pes-caprae. In large quantities the oxalic acid inhibits digestion and in stock leads to the condition 'dikpens' or bloated belly.