Description :

• Perennial herbs with flowering shoots produced annually from a tuber and dying back each year; all parts exuding a milky latex
• Stems erect, simple or sparsely branched, with opposite and decussate lines of indumentum throughout
• Leaves simple, entire, opposite and decussate or less often verticillate or irregularly inserted; petiole short; leaf base often sagittate, apex acute or obtuse, margin usually revolute; upper leaf surface usually with an indumentum of appressed scabrid hairs; lower leaf surface with pilose midrib, lamina ± glabrous except for sparsely pilose lateral nerves
• Inflorescences extra-axillary umbels, always pedunculate (except in S. bidens subsp. pachyglossum ), several to many per stem, few- to many-flowered; bracteoles filiform, inconspicuous; inflorescence axes pilose
• Calyx shorter than corolla; segments triangular, dorsally appressed-pilose, ventrally glabrous, with ciliate margin
• Corolla contorted in bud, with lobes overlapping to the left; lobes elliptic, either flat or slightly cucullate or replicate, with variable indumentum; when margin ciliate, hairs present on both right- and left-hand margins
• Corona lobes alternating with petals, each representing a dorsal outgrowth from opposing stamen; form of corona variable, lobes dorsiventrally flattened and often with 1 or 2 appendages on ventral face
• Stamens united at base to form a hollow column from which corona lobes arise; each anther comprising a central area of 2 thecae, each containing one pollinium, an apical membranous appendage lying against or cupped over gynostegium, and two horny lateral margins; margins of adjacent anthers closely opposed, forming a narrow gynostegial groove between them, blocked at its upper end by a corpuscle
• Pollinia pendulous, obtriangular, ellipsoid, reniform or sausage-shaped, dorsiventrally compressed, always with a germination zone present on circumference but never at point of attachment to caudicle; caudicles short, slender or somewhat flattened; corpuscle sometimes flanged
• Ovary of 2 free carpels concealed within staminal column; styles tapering upwards, then uniting and broadening into a flat or umbonate style head
• Follicles covered with long, soft appressed bristles, surface of carpel and bristles densely crispate-pubescent; fruiting peduncle elongating and pedicels becoming once-coiled at apex
• Seeds many, compressed-ovoid with dark brown rugose testa and apical tuft of hairs of fine white hairs

Nomenclature:

• Schizoglossum E.Mey.
  • Meyer: 218 (1838)
  • Brown: 588 (1907)
  • Kupicha: 600 (1984)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 80, Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 27, widespread and mainly in grassland, excluding Namibia and Botswana