Description :

• Shrubby herbs
• Leaves simple, petioled, deeply palmately lobed, toothed; stipules linear
• Flowers solitary or few, cernuous
• Male flowers : sepals 3 or 4, linear, recurved; corolla 3- or 4-lobed, pubescent, persistent, tube campanulate, lobes ± as long as tube, ovate, slightly winged or keeled; glands 3 or 4, ciliate, at base of corolla tube; stamens 3 or 4, free, anthers oblong, didymous; ovary absent
• Female flowers : sepals 3 or 4, hairy, lanceolate, larger than in male flowers; corolla pubescent, larger than in male flowers; tube campanulate, winged; glands at base of corolla tube; ovary subsessile, somewhat compressed, with 3-5 ovules on 3-5 parietal placentas, pubescent; style about as long as ovary, 3-5-lobed
• Fruit a capsule enclosed in persistent corolla, 3-5-valved, with persistent style
• Seeds subglobose, pitted, narrowly winged (arillate) on one side, pubescent

Nomenclature:

• Acharia Thunb.
  • Thunberg: 14 (1794)
  • Harvey: 501 (1862)
  • Killick: 130 (1976)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Monotypic: Acharia tragodes Thunb., endemic, Northern Province, Mpumalanga, KwaZulu-Natal to Eastern Cape