Description :

• Perennial herbs, with several to many stems from a woody rootstock
• Leaves opposite or in whorls of 3 or 4, shortly petiolate, oblanceolate or oblong, glabrous or with sparse bristly hairs on both surfaces; stipules triangular, connate at base, usually shortly subulate at apex
• Flowers in simple or branched cymes or fascicles, sometimes borne at lower, often leafless nodes; bracts small
• Calyx 5-lobed; lobes unequal, oblong, sometimes reduced to teeth; tube short
• Corolla 4- or 5-lobed, white, cream or greenish white; lobes ovate or oblong-lanceolate sometimes apiculate, as long as or longer than tube; tube broadly cylindric, sometimes short, with a ring of long, reflexed hairs; sparsely to densely pilose at throat
• Stamens 4 or 5, arising in mouth of corolla; filamens shorter than anthers; anthers just exserted, oblong, shortly mucronate
• Disc usually annular
• Ovary 2-locular, with a single pendulous ovule in each locule; style terete or linear, slightly exserted; stigmatic knob cylindric or subcapitate, deeply 2-lobed
• Fruit globose or obpyriform, didymous or asymmetrical, containing (1)2 pyrenes

Nomenclature:

• Pygmaeothamnus Robyns
  • Robyns: 29 (1928)
  • Sonder: 13 (1865) under Vangueria
  • Phillips: 730 (1951)
  • Verdcourt & Bridson: 776 (1991)
  • Bridson: 307 (1998)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 4, tropical Africa
• Southern Africa : Species 2, Namibia, Botswana, Northern Province, North-West, Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Swaziland, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal and Eastern Cape