Description :

• Acaulescent, tufted herbs, with branched nodose rhizomes bearing many long swollen roots
• Leaves 1-4 per shoot, deciduous; petiole sheathing at base, often mottled with purple; lamina simple, sagittate, hastate or cordate at base
• Inflorescence appearing before or contemporary with leaves, borne on short peduncles at ground level
• Spathe tubular with margins connate towards base, limb slightly expanded, deciduous
• Spadix shorter than spathe; female flowers below, male flowers above, separated by an interstice bearing sterile flowers
• Flowers with perianth segments fused, boat-shaped or cupular, truncate and swollen above
• Male flowers many; stamens 2-7, exserted on long free filaments; anthers opening by lateral slits; ovary rudimentary
• Female flowers either few, arranged in a basal circle or many, forming spirals; staminodes lacking; ovary 1- or 2-locular; ovules 1-several per locule on axial placentas; style long; stigma capitate to broadly discoid
• Fruit a berry, 1-few-seeded
• Seeds ovoid, tessellate; with copious endosperm
• x = 14

Nomenclature:

• Stylochaeton Lepr.
  • Leprieur: 184 (1834)
  • Brown: 34 (1897) [As S tylochiton ]
  • Engler: 29 (1920)
  • Letty: 12 (1962)
  • Mayo: 42 (1985)
  • Mayo et al.: 151 (1997)
• Stylochiton Schott
  • Schott: 10 (1855) orthographic variant

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 15, restricted to tropical and southern subtropical Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Stylochaeton natalensis Schott, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal