Description :

• Perennial, erect herbs, pubescent; stems single, finely striate, terete
• Leaves long-petiolate or sessile
• Flowers in a branched panicle of 8-15-flowered helicoid cymes; pedicels ebracteolate, elongating considerably in fruit
• Calyx divided nearly to base into 5 equal, lanceolate lobes; scarcely accrescent in fruit
• Corolla white to dull yellow; tube campanulate or subrotate; faucal scales exserted from corolla throat, trapeziform, usually oblong-triangular; lobes 5, ovate, obtuse, sometimes rather fleshy
• Stamens exserted; with filaments arising in middle of corolla tube, well below faucal scales; anthers oblong to ovoid
• Nectary scales ± 10, situated at extreme base of corolla tube, each with 2 divergent horns
• Disc thick, semiglobose
• Ovary 4-lobed; gynobase conical; style gynobasic, filiform, subequalling stamens or slightly shorter; stigma small, capitate
• Fruit of 1 or 4 nutlets; nutlets either depressed, wingless and densely glochidiate or strongly laterally compressed, lacking glochids but with broad, cartilaginous, ± undulate wing

Nomenclature:

• Afrotysonia Rauschert
  • Rauschert: 558 (1982)
  • Gürke: 98 (1897)
  • Wright: 12 (1904)
  • Mill: 467 (1986)
• Tysonia Bolus
  • Bolus: t. 1942 (1890) in part

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 3, Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 2: Afrotysonia africana (Bolus) Rauschert and A. glochidiata (R.R.Mill) R.R.Mill, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape