This ground-hugging species with a rhizome and fleshy roots forms a compact rosette of some 20-30 broadly elliptic or cordate discolorous leaves with crenate margins, measuring about 50 x 75 mm, glossy above with deeply indented venation hiding creamy-green flowers which are close to the ground, solitary and stalked.

"[3] The Achariaceae is a small family of perennial, monoecious and sympetalous dicotyledons endemic to southern Africa.

The family comprises three monotypic genera of diverse growth habit and habitat: Acharia tragodes Thunb., a sparsely branched, subherbaceous shrublet of valley bushveld centered in the Eastern Cape; Ceratiosicyos laevis (Thunb.)

A.Meeuse, a herbaceous, non-tendriliferous twiner from forest margins, particularly along the eastern escarpment of the country, and Guthriea capensis Bolus, a rosette plant with underground rootstock occurring in open grassland on the southern Drakensberg and in sheltered niches among rocks on high mountains of the Karoo (Dahlgren and Van Wyk 1988).

In vegetative morphology and anatomy the genera also differ markedly, but the monoecious breeding system, the hypogynous flowers with sympetalous corollas and the swollen trichomes on the anthers clearly knit the taxa together