Description :

• Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes shrublets
• Leaves alternate, rarely opposite
• Flowers solitary, on axillary or terminal peduncles or sometimes panicled
• Calyx usually shorter than corolla tube (3- or 4-)5-partite; segments usually linear or subulate
• Corolla (3- or 4-)5-lobed to ± middle; tube funnel-shaped, or campanulate, sometimes widened at base; lobes variable in shape, usually shorter than tube
• Stamens 5, free from corolla, included; filaments linear, sometimes pilose, often expanded at base and 2-lobed; anthers 2-thecous, linear, sometimes sagittate
• Ovary subglobose, 2-5-locular, with many ovules in each locule, glabrous or hairy, sometimes glandular; style terete, included or exserted, sometimes with cone-shaped base; stigma of 2-5 glandular, usually recurved, lobes
• Fruit a capsule, dehiscing loculicidally into as many valves as there are locules
• x = 9 (8) (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Wahlenbergia Schrad. ex Roth
  • Schrader ex Roth: 399 (1821) name conserved
  • Sonder: 566 (1865)
  • Von Brehmer: 9 (1915)
  • Thulin: 1 (1975)
  • Lammers: 333 (1995)
  • Welman: 157 (1996)
• Lightfootia L'Hér.
  • L'Héritier de Brutelle: 4, t. 4 (1789) name illegitimate.
• Cervicina Delile
  • Delile: 7, t. 5, f. 2 (1813) name rejected.
• Cephalostigma A.DC.
  • Candolle: 117 (1830)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 200, mainly southern hemisphere
• Southern Africa : Species nearly 150, all regions