Description :

• Shrubs, shrublets or small trees, sometimes spinescent, glabrous or ± cobwebby
• Leaves alternate, mostly obovate and narrowed into petiole, entire or toothed
• Capitula radiate, shortly pedunculate, usually few together or solitary, many-flowered
• Involucre broadly campanulate; bracts in 2-4 rows, free, linear to ovate-lanceolate
• Receptacle ± convex, glabrous or pubescent, epaleate
• Ray florets female, fertile; corolla yellow, tube sometimes rudimentary, with ± oblong-elliptic, 3-toothed lamina up to 4½ × its length
• Staminodes sometimes present
• Style linear, with linear, obtuse branches
• Fruit a drupe, shiny black or blue; endocarp hard, globose to obovoid or subcylindric, smooth or with ± raised nerves
• Pappus 0
• Disc florets functionally male; corolla tube funnel-shaped, glandular-hairy, with 5 lanceolate lobes
• Anthers ecalcarate, shortly caudate; with ovate, apical appendage; endothecial tissue polarised
• Style terete, minutely bifid
• Pappus 0
• x = 9 (10 - 1 report) (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Chrysanthemoides Fabr.
  • Fabricius: 144 (1759)
  • Tournefort ex Medikus: 159 (1789)
  • Norlindh: 367 (1943)
  • Nordenstam: 373 (1994)
• Osteospermum L. in part
  • Harvey: 433 (1865)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 2; extending into tropical East Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 2: Chrysanthemoides incana (Burm.f.) Norl. and C. monilifera (L.) Norl., widespread but absent from Botswana, North-West and Gauteng