Description :

• Herbs or subshrubs with 1 or more erect, virgate stems arising from a perennial base
• Leaves often quite large, margin toothed
• Inflorescences terminal, paniculate, often occupying a third or more of the plant; bracts minute, each subtending a single flower
• Calyx not or slightly gibbous at base, subequally 5-toothed, accrescent; tube campanulate; teeth short, deltoid to deltoid-lanceolate
• Corolla bilabiate; tube short, declinate, bent and expanding just beyond calyx; upper lip erect, short, obscurely 4-lobed; lower lip large, boat-shaped
• Stamens 4, declinate, arising from mouth of corolla tube and lying in lower lip; filaments united at base into a sheath open above
• Style slightly exceeding stamens; stigma entire
• Nutlets subrotund, slightly compressed, triquetrous, glabrous

Nomenclature:

• Holostylon Robyns & Lebrun
  • Robyns & Lebrun: 103 (1929)
  • Codd: 173 (1985)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 4, in tropical Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Holostylon baumii (Gürke) G.Tayl., known from Botswana