Description :

• Subshrubs, rarely shrubs; often spiny
• Branches sometimes jointed
• Leaves opposite, (1)2-foliolate, usually fleshy, sometimes early deciduous; leaflets variable in shape, sometimes quite small; stipules membranous, herbaceous or spiny
• Flowers solitary or 2 together
• Calyx with 4 or 5 sepals, often somewhat fleshy, sometimes connate at base, occasionally outer 2 gibbous at base, persistent or deciduous, imbricate
• Petals 4 or 5, usually sessile, sometimes clawed, imbricate, white, yellow or orange
• Disc 8-10-angled, somewhat fleshy
• Stamens 8-10, inserted at base of disc; filaments terete, with an entire, bifid or 2-partite appendage
• Ovary sessile on disc, often 4- or 5-angled or globose, usually 4- or 5-locular with 2-many pendulous ovules in each locule; style simple, terete, longer or shorter than ovary; stigma minute
• Fruit a capsule, 4- or 5-locular; 4- or 5-angled or -winged
• Seeds few to several in each locule, crustaceous; with endosperm
• x = 11 (8, 9, 10) (polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Zygophyllum L.
  • Linnaeus: 385 (1753)
  • Linnaeus: 182 (1754)
  • Candolle: 705 (1824)
  • Sonder: 355 (1860)
  • Hooker: 266 (1862)
  • Oliver: 285 (1868)
  • Engler: 80 (1897)
  • Engler: 160 (1931)
  • Van Huyssteen: 1 (1937)
  • Phillips: 434 (1951)
  • Launert: 125 (1963)
  • Hadidi: 22 (1972)
  • Hadidi: 8 (1985)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 120, Mediterranean region to central Asia, mostly in the drier parts of Africa and Australia
• Southern Africa : Species 44, mainly in dry, brackish areas of the southern part of Namibia, and in Botswana, Free State, Northern and Western Cape