Description :

• Shrublets or shrubs with mostly erect, rarely curving or creeping branches, some species with spines, derived from sterile branches of inflorescence; roots woody, rarely tuberous
• Leaves opposite, free to connate at base to more than halfway, triangular in cross section, flat above and rounded or keeled on lower surface, keel sometimes toothed towards apex; bluish green, usually with darker dots, glabrous or ciliate, rarely papillate on margins
• Flowers axillary or terminal, solitary to many in inflorescence, usually bracteate, medium-sized
• Sepals 4 or 5
• Petals pink to purple, rarely white, 1-several-seriate, sometimes arranged in 5 bundles
• Stamens arranged in a cone; filaments often hairy at base; staminodes few to many
• Nectary a continuous, crenulate, dark green ring
• Ovary ± conical on top; placentas parietal; stigmas 5(6)
• Fruit a 5(6)-locular capsule, of Ruschia type; with a deep base and no valve wings; valves opening into upright position; closing bodies small, hook- hood- or rodlet-shaped, rarely larger and sometimes 0; expanding keels short, widely diverging; additional closing rodlets at distal lower surfaces of covering membranes
• Seeds variable in shape, yellowish or brownish, smooth to papillate
• x = 9 (polyploidy)

• Flowering throughout the year with peaks in spring and autumn

• Distinguishing characters :
  • Mostly shrubby, sometimes creeping perennials
  • Fruit with small hook-shaped closing bodies, short tangentially arranged expanding keels

Nomenclature:

• Ruschia Schwantes
  • Schwantes: 186 (1926)
  • Friedrich: 109 (1970)
  • Herre: 268 (1971)
  • Dehn: 91 (1992)
  • Hartmann & Stüber: 1 (1993)
  • Smith et al.: 354 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 224, very wide distribution from near Helmeringhausen in Namibia and eastward in South Africa to Vereeniging in Gauteng and to Harrismith in the Free State, down to the western and southern coasts, also including the mountains of Lesotho