Description :

• Hemiparasitic, dioecious shrublets, or annual or perennial herbs
• Leaves alternate, often scale-like
• Inflorescence a slender, terminal spike of solitary, or 2- or 3-flowered bracteolate cymules
• Flowers unisexual
• Male flowers hypocrateriform; perianth tube short, continuous with solid receptacle; lobes 4 or 5, spreading with a tuft of hairs arising from anthers; stamens 4; filaments arising at base of perianth lobes; anthers small; ovary and style rudimentary or often 0
• Female flowers with perianth tube very shortly campanulate or scarcely evident, adnate to ovary; lobes 4(5); disc usually obscure; staminodes rarely present; ovules 2 or 3, pendulous from apex of a central, straight or folded, filiform placenta; style short; stigma obscurely 2- or 3-lobed
• Fruit a globose or ovoid 5-ribbed nut, conspicuously reticulated with a fleshy basal ring crowned by a persistent perianth; endocarp crustaceous; embryo terete in centre of fleshy albumen

Nomenclature:

• Thesidium Sond.
  • Sonder: 364 (1857)
  • Hill: 201 (1915)
  • Levyns: 340 (1950)

Distribution & Notes:

• Southern Africa : Species ± 8, all in region, Western Cape from near Malmesbury to Port Elizabeth in Eastern Cape