Description :

• Perennial herbs, with tuberous rootstock or fusiform roots; sap milky
• Leaves often sessile
• Flowers in umbels; umbels sessile or pedunculate, few to several, lateral at nodes, or a single, terminal umbel
• Sepals 5, sometimes with scales within sinuses
• Corolla 5-lobed nearly to base, with lobes erect to reflexed
• Corona of 5 lobes arising from staminal column; lobes fleshy, ± as thick as broad, sometimes bifid or obscurely 3-lobed, keelless or with one longitudinal median keel on inner face, never cucullate nor complicate nor with process from inner face
• Staminal column arising from base of corolla
• Anthers 2-locular, terminated by a membranous, ovate or transversely oblong appendage, rarely spurred at base; pollinia pendulous, caudicles short
• Follicles smooth or with slender processes
• Seeds oblong, convex on one side, depressed on reverse, with rim tubercled and with apical tuft of hairs

Nomenclature:

• Xysmalobium R.Br.
  • Brown: 27 (1810)
  • Brown: 564 (1907)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 40, Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 21, widespread in all countries and provinces, in grassland