Description :

• Small, annual or perennial herbs; stems leafy throughout or ± nude above, pubescence mainly eglandular with hairs retrorse or sometimes patent, sometimes some patent, gland-tipped hairs present as well but not dominant
• Leaves opposite below, alternate above, sometimes pseudofasciculate or crowded at base, variously shaped but often elliptical to ovate, usually petiolate, entire to serrate, usually pubescent to some extent, at times glandular punctate
• Flowers in racemes, elongate or capitate, always erect
• Bracts adnate to pedicel and at least halfway up calyx tube, patent, eglandular hairs always present at least on lower margins
• Calyx usually tubular, distinctly or obscurely bilabiate, 5-lobed mostly halfway or more to base, rarely calyx incompletely tubular with 3 posterior lobes free to base and 2 anterior ones joined to ± halfway, that is, the part where bract is adnate to calyx; membranous
• Corolla bilabiate, membranous, persistent; tube cylindrical to narrowly funnel-shaped, usually glabrous outside, rarely pubescent; posterior lip 2-lobed, exterior in bud, sometimes with an orange/yellow patch at base, there either glabrous or bearded with unicellular clavate hairs; anterior lip 3-lobed; lobes entire
• Stamens usually 4, didynamous, rarely 2, or sometimes reduced to 2 or 3 in self-fertilised flowers, well exserted in chasmogamous flowers; posterior filaments decurrent at least halfway down corolla tube; anterior pair exceeding posterior pair; anthers synthecate, dorsifixed
• Nectary at base of ovary on shorter side
• Ovary bilocular, elliptical, usually glabrous; ovules few to many per locule; style filiform, passing gradually into lingulate stigma with two marginal bands of stigmatic papillae
• Fruit a septicidal capsule with a short loculicidal split at tip of each valve
• Seeds elliptic or angled, mostly colliculate and ± wrinkled as well, sometimes smooth, ± opaque, pale amber, creamy, greyish, mauvish, bluish or dark blue-grey, not winged; testa tightly investing endosperm
• x = 6

Nomenclature:

• Phyllopodium Benth.
  • Bentham: 372 (1836)
  • Bentham: 352 (1846)
  • Bentham: 944 (1876)
  • Hiern: 311 (1904) in part
  • Hilliard & Burtt: 161 (1977) excl. Polycarena transvaalensis Hiern
  • Hilliard: 429 (1994)
• Polycarena Benth. in part
  • Hiern: 325 (1904)
• Selago L. in part
  • Rolfe: 160 (1901)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 26, Namibia, in South Africa mainly in Northern Cape (Namaqualand, but only 7 species N of Kamiesberg) and Western Cape (southwestern part to ± 20°E), only 8 species occur further east, 2 reaching Durban (KwaZulu-Natal)