Description :

• Perennial herbs or almost subshrubs, most parts densely and minutely white-pubescent; stems much branched, erect to ascending or procumbent; branches 4-angled, leafy
• Leaves opposite, ovate, petiolate, acute, cuneate, serrate-dentate
• Flowers small, axillary, solitary, bracteate; in a lax raceme; pedicels filiform, minutely bibracteolate, decurved in fruit
• Bracts foliose
• Calyx 5-partite; lobes ± narrowly triangular, acute, subequal, pilose
• Corolla tubular, bilabiate, subcampanulate, 5-lobed; tube cylindrical to somewhat dilated at mouth, sparsely pilose to subglabrous outside; upper lip shortly 2-lobed, exterior in bud; lobes triangular-ovate; lower lip somewhat larger, shortly 3-lobed, subcircular, with a distinct palate, minutely pubescent within
• Stamens 4, perfect, didynamous, arising ± halfway up corolla tube, included in upper lip; all filaments curved inwards but longer anterior ones also bent outwards at base; anthers bithecate; thecae ovoid, equal, confluent at apex, strongly divergent; staminode 1, filiform, arising near base of corolla tube, or 0
• Ovary bilocular, narrowly conical, attenuate into slender style; ovules many
• Fruit an ellipsoid-conical, shortly beaked, puberulous, septicidal capsule, turned downwards; valves coherent or connivent at apex after dehiscence
• Seeds small, many, narrowly oblong, usually somewhat curved, longitudinally ribbed

Nomenclature:

• Stemodiopsis Engl.
  • Engler: 25 (1897a)
  • Engler: 497, t. 7, A-F (1897b)
  • Hemsley & Skan: 314 (1906)
  • Philcox: 40 (1990)
  • Mielcarek: 42 (1996)
  • Fischer: 73 (1997)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 5, Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Stemodiopsis rivae Engl., Northern Province, in rock crevices on Blouberg, Soutpansberg and in northern Kruger National Park; also in Swaziland (Lebombo Mountains)