Description :

• Annual or perennial herbs, rarely somewhat woody at base, erect, often much-branched, rarely diffuse, tomentum not glandular
• Leaves opposite or apparently whorled, often clustered at nodes on sessile axillary shoots, linear or oblanceolate to ovate; stipules scarious
• Inflorescences terminal, loose or compact cymes, bracteate; bracts sepal-like
• Flowers bisexual; perianth and stamens hypogynous or somewhat perigynous
• Sepals 5, free, scarious, not keeled, rarely herbaceous, often silvery, white or brown to purple
• Petals 5, much shorter than sepals, entire, 2-toothed
• Stamens (2-)5; 5 inner staminodes sometimes present
• Ovary 1-locular; ovules few to many on a free central placenta; style 3-fid or capitate
• Fruit a capsule, 3-valved
• Seeds few to many, often lenticular, sometimes slightly tuberculate, tiny, translucent, brown
• x = 9 (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Polycarpaea Lam.
  • Lamarck: 3, t. 25 ( 'Polycarpea' ) (1792) name conserved
  • Candolle: 373 (1828)
  • Sonder: 133 (1860)
  • Pax: 87 (1889)
  • Burtt Davy: 152 (1926)
  • Turrill: 5 (1956)
  • Wild: 341 (1961)
  • Podlech: 2 (1967)
  • Wild, Hooper & Diniz: 5 (1973)
  • Friedrich: 772 (1979)
  • Bittrich: 221 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 50, with tropical and subtropical distribution (chiefly palaeotropic); * Polycarpaea spirostylis F.Muell. from Australia is a copper indicator
• Southern Africa : Species 2, recorded from Namibia, Botswana, the northern provinces to Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal