Perennial herbs or shrublets, often branched from a woody rootstock
Leaves
opposite or ternate, sessile, lanceolate, usually hairy; stipular sheaths ± cup-shaped, with linear setae or fimbriae on either side, median often (much) longer than others
Flowers
not heterostylous, paired, on short, persistent pedicels, in head- or spike-like inflorescences, elongating in fruit
Calyx
5-lobed, persistent; 1-3 lobes elongated and foliaceous, others minute
Corolla
5-lobed, white to light red, usually glabrous; lobes linear-lanceolate, much shorter than tube; tube narrowly cylindric, sometimes bearded in throat
Stamens
(4)5, arising in throat of corolla, exserted; filaments slender; anthers oblong, dorsifixed
Ovary
2-locular, with a single erect ovule in each locule, attached near base; style filiform, bilobed, exserted; stigmas smooth, filiform
Fruit
usually splitting into 2 mericarps, crowned with persistent calyx
x ± 9 (aneuploids, polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Otiophora
Zucc.
Zuccarini: 315 (1832)
Phillips: 737 (1951)
Verdcourt: 315 (1976)
Puff: 310 (1981)
Puff: 142 (1989)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Species 20, tropical Africa and Madagascar
Southern Africa
: Species 2, Northern Province, North-West, Mpumalanga, Gauteng, Swaziland and KwaZulu-Natal
References:
PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants.
Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa
No. 25
PUFF, C. 1981. Studies in
Otiophora
Zucc. (
Rubiaceae
). A new classification of the southern African taxa.
Journal of South African Botany
47
VERDCOURT, B. 1976.
Flora of tropical East Africa
.
Rubiaceae
(part 1)
ZUCCARINI, J.G. 1832.
Otiophora
.
Abhandlungen der Akademie der Wissenschaften
, München 1
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