Description :

• Shrublets or shrubs, erect or ascending, sparingly branched; branchlets 4-ridged
• Leaves imbricate, entire, coriaceous, with or without a dark areola
• Flowers 1-7, terminal, sessile, usually bracteate and usually in small, capitate spikes; bracts: lowest larger than leaves, denticulate-fimbriate, with or without apical gland and with sticky secretion
• Perianth : tube cylindric, rose or purple, seldom white; lobes ± a third as long as tube, becoming reflexed
• Stamens : filaments erect, linear, ± as long as the elliptic-oblong connective; anthers ± oblong, slightly shorter than connective, with shortly papillate fissure margins
• Ovary sessile, smooth, with 4 ascending ovules in each locule; style slender; stigma capitate, quadrangular, relatively large
• x = 10 (1 report, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Saltera Bullock
  • Bullock: 109 (1959)
  • Dahlgren: 51 (1968)
• Penaea L. in part.
• Sarcocolla Kunth in part

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 1: Saltera sarcocolla (L.) Bullock, SW Western Cape