Description :

• Shrubs erect to sprawling, seldom with coppice shoots sprouting from lignotubers
• Leaves linear to broadly ovate, abaxially smoothly rounded, petiole 0 to vestigial; stipules 0; bud leaf colleter papilloid to deltoid, eroding to a minute black patch, rarely retained intact
• Flowers solitary or in terminal, usually semiglobose capitula; bracts closely appressed to rarely spreading, ovate to elliptic, with a black apiculus, midrib not visible; bracteoles 2, rarely 1 or absent, lanceolate to spathulate or obovate; floral receptacle obconic to rarely oblong, sometimes with slight ribs passing up to sepals
• Calyx : tube minute; segments deltoid to ovate, midrib scarcely visible, usually with a dark apiculus
• Corolla white to magenta, free from filaments, obovate to oblong or elliptic; a crest partly covering edge of ovary
• Stamens free from petals; filaments often incurved; anther thecae usually partly free, rarely fused or divergent; pollen with 3-6 colpi
• Nectary a pale fleshy ring around top edge of ovary; scent known in one of the species: sweet and musky
• Ovary fully to half-inferior; locules usually 2, seldom 1, very rarely 3, wall between locules often incomplete at anthesis; ovules either 1 or 2 or 0 in one locule; styles adnate to connate below the erect or distally divergent branches
• Fruit , where known, either indehiscent, with receptacle enlarged and persistent flower parts attached, or rarely dehiscing with capsule valves
• Seeds ovoid, lacking an elaiosome
• x = 11 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Raspalia Brongn.
  • Brongniart: 377, t. 37 fig. 1 (1826) under Berardia Brongn.
  • Sonder: 318 (1862) in part
  • Pillans: 147 (1947)
• Mniothamnea (Oliv.) Nied.
  • Niedenzu: 136 (1891)
  • Niedenzu & Harms: 302 (1930)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 11, mainly SW Western Cape, to extremely rare in KwaZulu-Natal