Description :

• Xeromorphic, evergreen shrublets or shrubs with somewhat 4-angled branchlets
• Leaves decussate, simple, subsessile, cordate-ovate, silky when young, glabrescent; stipules petiolar, minute
• Flowers bisexual, regular, 4-merous, in short, much-branched, bracteate, axillary racemes along upper twigs; bracts 4 or 6, 2 lowest smallest, persistent; axillary bracteoles sometimes present
• Perianth 4-partite, persistent, rose-coloured; segments imbricate, 2 outer clasping the inner
• Stamens 8, arising from base of perianth and slightly shorter than it; filaments linear; anthers elliptic, dorsifixed, versatile, 2-thecous, bilobed at base
• Ovary superior, 4-locular, narrowly 4-winged, with 2 collateral, pendulous ovules in each locule, rarely 1 ovule aborted; styles 4, twisted at base, narrowed and cohering upwards, longer than ovary; stigmas small
• Fruit a 4-locular capsule, dehiscing by 4 longitudinal sutures on wings of locules
• Seed single in each locule, whitish, smooth, shiny, with brittle testa

Nomenclature:

• Geissoloma Lindl. ex Kunth
  • Kunth: 678 (1830)
  • Stephens l.c.
  • Dahlgren & Rao l.c.

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 1: Geissoloma marginatum (L.) A.Juss., Western Cape: Swellendam to Riversdale District