Description :

• Annual or perennial herbs, rarely subshrubs; stems erect or prostrate, simple or branched
• Leaves attached to stipular sheath at base; stipules with 1-several fimbriae
• Flowers heterostylous or isostylous; usually in terminal clusters
• Calyx 4-partite, equal, narrowly to broadly triangular
• Corolla 4-lobed, white; usually with short tube, bearded in throat
• Stamens 4, included or exserted; with glabrous or rarely papillose filaments; anthers dorsifixed, sometimes subsessile
• Ovary 2-locular, with many ovules in each locule on shortly stalked placentas; style included or exserted, glabrous or minutely hairy; stigma lobes linear to subglobose
• Fruit a subglobose to oblong capsule, usually with loculicidal dehiscence
• Seeds usually many, subglobose or angled, becoming slimy when moistened; testa cells smooth to distinctly punctate, granular or tuberculate
• x = 9 (11) (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Oldenlandia L.
  • Linnaeus: 119 (1753)
  • Sonder: 8 (1865) under Hedyotis
  • Phillips: 722 (1951)
  • Bremekamp: 183 (1952)
  • Verdcourt: 268 (1976)
  • Verdcourt: 120 (1989)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 300, tropical regions, especially Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 13, absent from Northern and Western Cape