Description :

• Dwarf shrubs or shrubs, glabrous, villous or sometimes viscid-pubescent; branches decumbent to ascending
• Leaves usually opposite or somewhat verticillate in basal parts, sometimes alternate above, closely set, sessile or with narrowed base, margins revolute and variously closely dentate or serrate, bases ± decurrent into ridges on young stems
• Flowers solitary in axils of upper leaves, pedicellate or subsessile, sometimes bracteolate; axis may continue to grow after flowering
• Calyx deeply and ± regularly 5-lobed; lobes linear to subulate with stalked glands or glabrous
• Corolla 5-lobed and ± regular; tube cylindrical, often a little dilated at throat, villous inside in upper half; lobes much shorter than tube, subequal, imbricate, posterior lobes exterior in bud
• Stamens 4, subequal, included; filaments short, filiform, arising ± in middle of corolla tube; anthers bithecate, narrowly oblong; thecae parallel
• Nectary 0
• Ovary bilocular, with usually 4 pendulous ovules in each locule; style short, well included; stigma somewhat thickened, oblique
• Fruit a small, globose, succulent drupe
• Seeds hard, somewhat rugose

Nomenclature:

• Oftia Adans.
  • Adanson: 199 (1763)
  • Rolfe: 93 (1901) under Myoporineae
  • Dahlgren & Rao: 451 (1971) under Scrophulariaceae
  • Takhtajan: 458 (1997) under Oftiaceae

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species 3, Northern Cape (Namaqualand) southwards to Western Cape (about Gansbaai) and east along mountains to Riversdale, and perhaps to Eastern Cape (Uitenhage)