Harveya speciosa, the large white inkflower, is a fleshy parasitic herb that grows to 1 m. The leaves are scale-like, lacking chlorophyll and thus dependent upon alternative sources of nutrition to produce seed. Parasitising on the roots of grasses or shrubby daisies solves this problem.

The plant turns black when becoming dry. Ingenious early colonists discovered that writing ink could be made from the sap found in these plants, earning Harveya plants the name of inkflower. The habitat is montane grassland and damp thickets in the eastern parts of South Africa, as well as Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique (Manning, 2009).